


Excalibur Vacations Never Go As Planned

by danke_rose



Category: Excalibur (Comic), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/M, Gen, I wrote this for myself but you can read it if you want, Little bit of graphic injuries, Moira MacTaggert minor role, No Smut, Not at all canon compliant, Not too bad though I don't go into detail, Rahne Piotr and Douglock in minor roles, Trask family is evil, characters may be out of character at times, friends to lovers eventually but it takes the whole story, kurtty - Freeform, oh god there was only one bed, other x-men characters in minor roles, sentinels stink, some language, timelines mean nothing to me, very fluffy sappy and self-indulgent, vomiting mentioned not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 14:10:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20211061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danke_rose/pseuds/danke_rose
Summary: Kurt gets lousy news about Winzeldorf, and Kitty suggests a vacation.  It doesn't go quite as planned.





	1. Trouble in Winzeldorf

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for myself, and it's full of tropes and all that. I know nothing about medicine, so it's all make-believe. I know nothing about GPS technology or anything of the sort, so it's all made up, too. In fact, all of it is. The whole story. I just wanted to write a sappy story where Kitty and Kurt are friends and wind up lovers because it is the thing I live to read.

Kitty hunched over her laptop, squinting at the screen and ignoring the voice in her head that told her to sit at a desk and wear her glasses. The thud-crack in the hallway startled her upright. It had been a long time since Brian had cracked the drywall.

But Brian didn't live here anymore. He was married to Meggan and they had moved back to Braddock Manor. Before Kitty could investigate the source of the violence, she heard muttered swearing in German, followed by another loud thunk as the door slammed shut again. Panic flooded her chest as she extricated herself from the tangle of wires draped across the bed and dove towards the doorway. Something must be wrong for Kurt to act like this. In the hall, his eyes blazed with anger, and she almost drew back into the room when he took a step towards her. What had _she_ done?

“_Verdammter mist1_, look at this!” He thrust a paper at Kitty, shaking it with insistence.

_Oh_. He wasn't mad at _her_.

Hesitantly Kitty took the paper, an international newspaper Kurt sometimes went into town on weekends to get, to keep up with the news and have an excuse to leave Muir Island for something other than impending disasters. That he found the paper at the same pub that sold him cases of Dinkelaker was no coincidence. Kitty scanned the sheet, looking for news of aliens or enraged druids or shiny silver wolves sucking out people's souls, but found nothing of the sort.

“Here,” he said, stabbing his finger at the paper when Kitty didn't find it immediately. “Look what they're doing! This is horrible!”

There was a tiny article at the bottom of the page, only a few sentences, about construction of a new adventure park in Germany, just outside the small town of Winzeldorf. She glanced up at Kurt. That was his hometown, or as close to a hometown as he had.

“An adventure park?” she said, “What the hell is that?”

He threw up his hands. “I don't know! But it means tearing down—” he stalked down the hall and back before continuing. “It means tearing down a lot of the natural forest area and paving a large section of the open space for _parking_.”

Kurt was as agitated as she'd ever seen him. Kitty folded the paper and handed it back, but he waved it away. “I don't want to read it again. I don't want to _look_ at it.” He put his head in his hand and pressed his fingers to his temples.

Her heart went out to him. He'd lost so much in so few years. The X-Men had been supposed dead, and the two of them all that remained. Before that, his foster mother all but disowned him, blaming him for the death of her son, Kurt's foster brother and one time closest friend. He had recently learned that the terrorist Mystique was his biological mother, and that upon his birth, she had tried to kill him by throwing him off a cliff. And then his girlfriend, to top it off, had left without explanation, and he had decided that was enough. Piotr's aberrant behavior had only added to the pain of losing teammates Kylun, Cerise, Micromax, Brian and Meggan, and worst of all, Rachel. Now he was about to lose even more. Did the X-Men ever get a break?

“Maybe I can find out more online,” Kitty said, taking a step closer. “Do you want me to?”

He shook his head. The building was quiet this afternoon, with Rahne and Douglock working in the lab, Meggan and Brian gone, and Piotr locked in his room painting. The two of them stood alone in the hall. “It isn't necessary.” He sighed and turned around, most of the bluster gone. “I'm sorry if I frightened you.”

“I'm fine,” she said. “But the wall will probably try to avoid you for a few days.” She gestured at the dent.

Kurt chuckled politely at her poor attempt at humor. Already Kitty was reading the article again and chewing her lip, no doubt figuring a way to locate more information. He knew she would. Maybe it was why he wanted to show her the article. He could have kept this to himself, stewed over it on his own time until he moved past it, but he hadn't—he'd involved her immediately.

No, he thought. He couldn't have kept this from her at all.

There weren't many other people for him to talk to right now. Piotr's erratic behavior had created a rift in their friendship that was proving difficult to repair. He had other friends, but Kitty was unarguably his _best_ friend. He wouldn't have it any other way.

He and Kitty had discussed, squished together in a corner of the sofa after a movie ended on several late-night occasions, the idea of returning to the States and rejoining the X-Men. Each time, they hesitated, unsure how they would fit in again, and how they would come to terms with the betrayal that still stung years later. She told him she wasn't sure she could ever fully trust them again. Having Piotr on Excalibur was already a stretch. She had fumed to Kurt one night, about how unfair it was that _Piotr_ felt so betrayed when he'd played dead for more than a year. Kurt admitted he felt much the same, and they had, so far, elected to stay in Scotland with Moira.

That meant the team was nearly nonexistent, until they got around to actively recruiting. Kurt thought Kylun might return; he'd mentioned the possibility at Meggan and Brian's wedding. So far, though, they hadn't heard from him. Other prospects weren't in abundance.

Kitty watched Kurt pull himself back together. He straightened his spine and took some deep breaths, and plastered on a smile that didn't fool her for a second. She took one look at him, eyes narrowing while lines appeared between her brows, then grabbed his hand. He'd been through so much lately, they both had, but they carried each other in their weak moments.

“Come _on_,” she urged when he resisted. She dragged him down the hall to the pegs where they kept their coats. “We're going for a walk.”

He didn't argue, though his enthusiasm left much to be desired. The wind snatched the door from Kitty's hands and banged it roughly against the brick exterior before she wrangled it shut behind them. There was a rise to the east of the facility that Kitty had found, where the foliage was less dense and she enjoyed looking out at the sea. Today, with the cold wind whipping about so haphazardly, the ocean was a mass of white foam sloshing back and forth against the rocky shore.

Kurt trudged along, rustling the heather behind her as he trailed Kitty up the hill.

“See those two buildings?” she said when she stopped, pointing to Moira's personal home and then to the facility itself. “They're two of my favorite places.”

Kurt knew she was up to something, but he hadn't figured it out yet. He played along, standing close to hear her voice above the wind and waves. He rested one elbow across her shoulder.

“Any idea why?” she said.

“I can only suppose it is because Moira helped save you here.”

“Well, yes, but more than that. The house—Moira's house—how long did we live there with her? Months, right? That house is a _real_ _house_, not like the mansion in New York. You and me and Moira, we were like a real little family there, as much of a family as I ever had.”

He considered that while their circumstances were vastly different, neither of them had benefited from much in the way of biological family in their early years. Kitty had parents who loved her, but argued so constantly that she sometimes hated to be home. He had been raised by a foster family with questionable morals when it came to dating.

She continued in spite of his musings. “And the other one is where we lived before that, where I watched you sleep for months, and then had to tell you everyone we loved was dead, and then watched you try to break yourself in your grief.”

Though it was long ago, he still hung his head in shame over that incident. He'd been selfish, not thinking of the consequences to Kitty should anything happen to him in the training room with all the safeties disengaged. Thankfully, she'd been watching out for him. He couldn't help but pull her slightly closer.

She patted his arm and continued, “I know Xavier's was home to you. I know the X-Men were your family. And I know—at least I can _imagine_—what Germany means to you. I just want you to remember that you still have a home and a family, and no matter what changes in our lives out there—” she waved her arms to indicate the wider world, “You have _me_, and _this_.”

She bumped her hip against his, more playful than she'd been in months, since Pete Wisdom had broken her heart and left her. Kurt had wanted to follow through on his restroom threat against him, but leaving her then wasn't an option. Maybe she was moving on from the cowardly man at last. He bumped her hip back, and then pulled her into a real embrace.

“Your perspective on the world is sometimes astounding,” he said with his chin on her head.

She shrugged before letting go of him and settling down on the flattened vegetation. The wind blew her hair back from her face. The air smelled of salt and plants. “Yours is, too,” she said.

Kitty tilted her head slightly, and the sun struck her cheek so that her eyes filled with light, and her hair seemed to glow with threads of copper silk. She was always lovely in his eyes, but like this, she was radiantly beautiful. She put a hand to shade her eyes and the magic was lost.

“What?” she said, as he stared.

“The sunlight in your hair,” he said, crouching down beside her. He balanced on long toes, one hand touching the ground in front for balance, “I didn't realize you had red in your hair.”

“Do I?” she pulled a chunk forward and inspected it. “Huh.” She tossed the shock of hair back into the wind.

Kurt rolled to a seat beside her with ease. She found his hand and slipped hers into it, so that his own thick fingers enveloped her slim ones. He could feel the chill even through the gloves of his uniform. It wasn't a particularly cold day for Muir Island, but this Scottish island was rarely what he would call _warm_. Kitty seemed susceptible to the cold—she had always been, now that he considered it. Surprising, though, for a girl raised outside Chicago, the Windy City.

He was caught off-guard when she said, “Do you want to go home for a while?”

“Do I...did you not just tell me _this_ is my home?” he smiled so she could see his fangs.

“It _is_. But Winzeldorf,” he loved that she pronounced it correctly, “was your first home. Right?”

He considered the veracity of this statement. “Mm..._ja_, close enough. I am told Mystique met my father in the Bavarian Alps somewhere, but I've never considered it my real homeland. Winzeldorf was the village—now a town—closest to where we had our circus. We traveled, of course, but always returned there.”

“So do you want to go?” she repeated, scooting closer and nudging his arm around her shoulders. He was always so warm.

“I don't know. I have never been particularly good at saying good-bye.” He cast his gaze across the landscape to the sea, where the sun was beginning to set, turning the sea every shade of orange and yellow he could imagine. He savored the moments when she wanted to be close to him like this.

“Not to say good-bye,” she said, “To _stop_ them.”

The thought had occurred to him, that perhaps they could find some way to put a stop to the construction. But theirs was not the business of trifling in commercial affairs such as these, and in the end, his conscience would not allow him to sabotage it.

“_Nein_, we cannot. It would not be right.”

“How so? Tearing up all that land, and for what?”

“To bring revenue to the town perhaps?”

“Okay, fine. Would you take me there, anyway?”

Slowly he inclined his head to hers, tucked close into his shoulder now. He could feel her beginning to shiver, even in the coat and even with his body heat helping to warm her. He couldn't stop the question, “Why?” before he spoke it aloud.

He saw a flicker of disappointment pass through her eyes, but she recovered quickly. “I never got to see where you grew up.” She pressed her cheek against his chest. “Never mind, it doesn't matter,” she amended.

“Let's go inside,” Kurt said, assisting Kitty to her feet. She was shivering in earnest and they walked briskly back to the facility.

Inside, Kitty made tea for both of them. She rubbed her hands together while the water came to a boil and Kurt hung up their coats. For all her independence, she didn't stop him from doing things for her, as he thought a gentleman would. He didn't know if it was for his sake—a kindness as his friend—or because she honestly enjoyed letting him take her coat or open a door for her. For himself, it was more than simple gallantry. Each act was born from the driving need to _please her_. Somewhere deep down, he must have thought that if he could only please her _enough_, she might love him.

In the kitchen the tea was poured and Kitty wrapped her hands around the hot mug, sipping at the steaming liquid inside. Kurt joined her at the table. “Still cold, _schatz_?”

“My hands. Can we talk about Germany? If you don't want to go, it's okay.”

His tea was still quite hot, and he blew across the top. “You asked me once before to accompany me to Germany. As I recall, I told you no quite emphatically.”

Her shoulders begin to slump as she anticipated his answer. Then she opened her mouth to speak, and he quickly added, “So I will not do that this time.”

She pressed her lips together and studied his face so long he thought she might be waiting for him to say something more. He was about to when she said, “Are you sure?”

He let the tips of his teeth show when he smiled. “Villains aren't exactly knocking down our door these days, and I _could_ use a vacation.” His smile widened more affectionately, “And if you're willing to listen to me talk incessantly about Germany, then all the better.”

“I don't want you to think I guilt-tripped you into it.”

“Guilt-tripped?”

“You know, made you feel guilty so you'd do what I wanted.”

“I have not tripped over any guilt, _K__ä__tzchen_,” he assured her. She still didn't realize how hard it was for him to deny her anything. He did, of course, now and then, but he hated it. Especially when it was something so genuine. Clearly she believed that a trip to his homeland would cheer him up, and it was charming that she cared so much.

  
  


Kitty tried not to remember the day he'd refused her company years ago. The team had moved from the demolished lighthouse to Braddock Manor—a huge, musty estate with dark rooms and creaky floors that gave her chills and made her want to look over her shoulder constantly. She'd gotten permission to remove Kurt's full leg cast—the femur broken in a fight with Brian having healed faster than a non-mutant's would—and he whined about it like a baby. She told him he'd have to take it easy for a few days, then he casually announced he was leaving in less than an hour. Her simple request, “Can I come?” was answered with a barked “No!”

When he returned from Germany, he wouldn't discuss it with her. He dismissed her questions and changed the subject whenever she brought it up, until she stopped asking. He obviously didn't want to talk about it, and she was torn between respecting his wishes and feeling hurt that he didn't feel he could confide in her. She wished he hadn't brought it up today. Rejection stung no matter the reason for it.

The two of them decided that in the morning they'd make all the arrangements, but for now, there was dinner to be made and Moira to be coaxed out of her lab to eat. Before Meggan and Brian moved out, Meggan had done a lot of cooking, because she enjoyed it. In the few weeks since the wedding, Kitty had learned that Kurt and Rahne could both cook rather well, but Douglock could not. The acceptable cooks, including Piotr, shared responsibilities for meals during the week, and the weekends they were on their own.

How it actually worked out was that on the weekends, Kurt and Kitty cooked together. Tonight was late already, so an easy meal was sandwiches and salad. They sat in the kitchen and ate, Kurt perched on the counter and Kitty on a barstool rolling her eyes at him.

“You know we put food on those counters,” she said, while Moira, on the intercom, repeated, “I'm almost done, I'll be right out,” at least four times.

Kitty loved how easily this team fit together, her and Kurt especially. The two of them had grown so close over the years that she could no longer imagine her life without him in it. The fear of ruining something so nearly perfect kept her secrets buried deep. She denied herself wild speculations about how or why he looked at her a certain way, or touched her, or the words he chose. None of it was a sign of anything, and she clung to this thought doggedly, lest she begin to hope.

Still, her eyes moved involuntarily to his form, crouched in a shape she was sure would give her a backache if she tried it—if she didn't fall off the counter altogether. He was lean and muscular, stronger than he appeared at first glance, and moved with a sinuous grace that caught the attention of any number of people when he went out in public. Devilishly sexy, she thought, but also sweet and kind and gentle. Who he was inside presented such a counterpoint to his demonic appearance it would have been almost funny, if it hadn't made his life so difficult.

After dinner and the news, Moira, Rahne, and Douglock returned to the main house for the night, while she and Kurt and Piotr debated movies. Piotr's turn to choose meant something quiet and dark, and neither she nor Kurt enjoyed those as much as an adventure or an upbeat old black and white. When Kitty returned with three bags of popcorn—necessary to avoid having all of hers stolen—Piotr was putting in the movie. Kurt had claimed the center of the couch—he always did, so Kitty would not inadvertently be required to sit beside her ex-boyfriend—and she curled up beside him. She was grateful that he didn't mind her affections, or that she sometimes dozed off during some of Piotr's poorer movie selections.

Tonight his tail looped behind her waist to rest on the side of her knee, where she had twisted her legs to the side in anticipation of a dull movie. She could easily stuff a pillow under her head and fall asleep this way if she wanted. The spade tip of his tail, reminding her of the way a dolphin's fin might feel, flipped back and forth against her leg. The motion was so relaxing she was definitely going to sleep through this movie. Already her eyes felt heavy.

His tail had once intrigued her, but was no different from any other part of him now, no longer a serpentine enigma to be studied and classified. Her chest clenched at the tender way he touched her—almost without thinking. She finished her popcorn and snuggled against his shoulder. Instead of the firm, strong resistance she was used to, she felt herself falling and for a moment thought she'd accidentally phased through him. But no, she hadn't, he was lying down, kicking her feet aside to make room for his, and tugging her up his torso.

Piotr was absorbed in the movie, but not so much that he failed to notice. Kitty ignored his slight frown and settled her head in the crook of Kurt's shoulder with her hip against his. She felt scandalous, lying against him like this, parts of her touching parts of him that had not before. But she was not about to deny herself the closeness or the invitation. And she wasn't going to ask him _why_.

His face was turned towards the television screen and he looked at ease. Rather than make herself nuts trying to understand, she simply accepted the affection. He was warm. Heat radiated from him, a result of his high metabolism. He was hard in places—elbows, hips, knees—but soft, too. Not just his fuzzy covering, but muscles, relaxed instead of taut, were comfortable on him. She hummed in contentment and he patted her back where his hand lay. She resisted the urge to scratch her fingers against his chest, curling them instead beneath her chin, out of the way of temptation. She sighed in contentment, and his fingers stroked her back idly.

She woke with a start when the movie ended. Her arm shot out across him, nearly clocking him in the chin when she jerked awake. He barely flinched, rolling instead out from beneath her and extricating his tail from her legs with a fond smile. Her own bed felt cold and empty when she crawled under the sheets.

1Damn crap


	2. Winzeldorf or Bust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vacation doesn't start the way they expected. Kurt and Kitty go to Winzeldorf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god there was only one bed.   
Overused tropes? Love them. Sap and fluff? Bring it. Do I care? Not even a little.

In the morning, Kurt seemed more enthusiastic about the trip than he had the previous day, and even suggested that, if there was time, they do some sightseeing in the city. Kitty stopped worrying that he didn't want her along, and started thinking about how much fun the two of them could have together, once the sad part was over. Museums and shops and restaurants and tours and...

“What?” she said, coming out of her reverie to find his hand poised over their list, eyes alight and mouth curved in a crooked smile.

“You had the dreamiest look on your face just now. Imagining something pleasant?”

“I think I might be overdue for a vacation, too. I was thinking about all the things I'd like to do when we're there.”

“I'm looking forward to it as well,” he said. He handed her the pen and slid the list across. “Here are my contributions. Anything you wish to add?”

She looked over the list, written in Kurt's familiar, surprisingly fine, penmanship. Guys in her old high school usually wrote in block letters, as if it somehow made them _manlier_. Kurt didn't suffer from that delusion. “I'd like to see _your_ museum,” she said without lifting her eyes.

“My museum, hm?”

Kitty ignored the mischievous expression on his face. “Yes. _Your_ museum. The Nightcrawler Museum.”

“If you want to walk around a museum dedicated to your best friend, who am I to stop you?”

She picked up the pen. “You're a goofball.”

“That may be true, but I am _your_ goofball, am I not?”

She raised suspicious eyes to his, then smiled in spite of herself. “_Such_ a goof.”

Of course he was hers—her best friend, her teammate...but this felt much more like assigning himself to her in some more meaningful way. He was _hers_?

Kurt watched Kitty's eyes moving over the list and the emotions playing across her face while she digested this latest hint. The decision to drop these little hints had taken him years. He had worked so hard and for so long to befriend her, and now that they were such good friends the thought of losing her over something as mundane as romance was unconscionable. Still...he loved her and wanted to be able to show her. He couldn't do that as long as they were platonic, and so he had decided to very subtly change his behavior, just enough for her to notice, but not enough to scare her off. He would be a little more affectionate, more attentive, cross a few shallow lines—nothing that would shock her, he hoped, nothing in appropriate—just enough to allow him the opportunity to gauge her reaction. Maybe he could learn whether or not there was a chance in hell that she might care for him.

She took a long time to read the list, he noticed. Then she wrote “Nightcrawler Museum” at the bottom and set the pen down with a snap.

“How far is Munich from Winzeldorf?”

“Not far. There is a train that runs through the hills. It's more scenic than efficient—meant for tourists mostly. But it stops in Winzeldorf.”

Kitty raised her brows in interest. “Could we do that? Would it be boring?”

“Of course we can. It's a short ride, perhaps two hours? The other option would be to rent a vehicle. I would prefer not to do that.”

Kitty chewed her lip while she thought. He tried not to watch her, because it always made him want to take that lip between his own teeth and nibble until her head lolled back and her eyes drifted shut. He blinked rapidly and added “train” to the list.

“We will need to buy tickets in advance,” he said.

“Is it worth riding it twice?” Kitty asked, “To and from?”

“_Ja_, it is a different route back to Munich.”

He felt her eyes on him and looked up.

She said, “I can't believe we're planning a vacation.”

His smile was genuine. “Nor can I. When was the last time we did anything like this?”

“Uh, never?” She chuckled. “We don't have time. And when we do, it's always interrupted by some crisis or another.” She held up one slim finger. “This time, no interruptions. Only lots of vacationing and fun.”

He caught her eyes and held them just a beat longer than was necessary, just long enough for the bright smile to waver. Then he said, “Absolutely. Fun and relaxation, _ja_?”

She nodded, still looking slightly off-balance. “Are we going to Winzeldorf first?”

She hoped the answer was yes, so they could get that part over with and enjoy themselves. She didn't want anything to spoil their first vacation in ages. She felt a bubble of excitement in her stomach.

Kurt sobered, picked up the pen, and tapped a rhythm on the table. “I suppose it is the logical thing to do. Fly into Munich, take the train out, deal with that, then go back to the city for some fun.” Her face was full of sympathy, and it made him irrationally annoyed. He tapped harder, then flipped the pen in the air, letting it land with a clatter on the table.

He pushed back and crossed his arms. “Stop it,” he said.

“Stop _what_? Planning our vacation?” He didn't smile back when she grinned.

“No. Stop feeling sorry for me.”

“I don't feel sorry for you.”

She crossed her arms too, and held his gaze until he gave in.

“Fine. But don't look at me like that,” Kurt said, pointing a finger at her. “My life isn't ending and I loathe people looking at me with pity. I've had enough of that.”

“I _don't_ feel sorry for you,” she repeated, stifling her irritation. “I just wish I could prevent all this from happening so you weren't sad.” She leaned farther across, partly into the table itself. He had the chair tipped back now, balancing on the two back legs in the manner Moira hated most. “Silly elf, don't you know it matters to me how you feel about things?”

He relented, unable to maintain his bad humor when she obviously cared so much. He let the chair fall forward, and Kitty darted back to avoid having his face smash against hers. She picked up the list to avoid his eyes, and wrote, “Don't feel sorry for Kurt” on it.

He read it upside-down—a particular talent he had, but not surprising, considering his penchant for hanging from the ceiling—and wrote below it, “Don't stop caring.”

“I won't,” she said gently.

Things had gotten quiet and serious, and Kurt's romantic side wanted so desperately to tell her how much he _needed_ her. He could play macho, but the truth was he needed someone who cared how he felt. Amanda never really had, and it was a new experience. As much as he wanted it, he also resisted it.

“I'm glad.” Then with a rush of relief at having admitted it, he said, “After Winzeldorf, what shall we do first?”

They spent another hour speculating about things to do and places to visit, and finally got around to discussing accommodations.

“You would like Hotel Laimer Hof,” Kurt said casually while his heart slammed in his chest. The hotel was quaint and romantic and if he was very lucky they'd be nearly booked and they'd have to share a room.

“So are we just gonna share a room or what?” she said.

Kurt's tail tightened around his leg in an effort to keep himself from choking. “It doesn't matter to me.”

“Seems silly to waste money on two rooms when we're probably just going to spend all our time in one of them. I mean...I don't want to spend half the trip away from you. Do—um, do you?” Kitty held her hands in her lap, squeezing them tightly and praying he wouldn't notice.

“I agree. Then it seems everything is settled except reservations. If you don't mind, I'll take care of those.”

“You speak better German than I do, after all,” she said with a blushing smile.

He got up with the list to go to the comms suite. On impulse, he kissed her head as he went by.

As he walked slowly to the comms suite, trying to bring his entirely stupid body back under control—heart hammering, breathing heavy, adrenaline flooding his veins—he realized how natural it seemed to be doing this with her.

Kitty sat at the table in silence, trying to figure out what was wrong with him lately. She couldn't imagine why he'd suddenly turned so affectionate—more so than usual—though she wasn't complaining. Surely there was nothing more to it than a particular friendly fondness for her. She certainly didn't consider herself his 'type'—tall, big-breasted, usually blond. Maybe he was lonely since Amanda had left, and Meggan married and gone as well. He'd nursed that crush on her for a year or more. Kitty wondered if he'd never truly given it up. She sighed, let herself wallow for a minute or two, and then stood up, determined to have fun on this vacation and not spend it worrying about his feelings for her.

She joined him in the comms suite as he was writing down information about the hotel. He leaned back in the chair with a grin, looking quite pleased with himself. “Our hotel is booked. I was able to get us a room for four nights, and in only three days.”

“Guess we aren't wasting any time then,” she said.

He frowned. “We did not discuss the timing, did we?”

She shrugged. “It doesn't matter. I meant to go right away, so this is perfect. We'll have time to pack and make sure things are taken care of here first. Plus we want to do that train ride first.”

“I booked that too.”

“You're efficient.”

“We'll have one night in Winzeldorf, if that is all right.”

“Of course. Do we have a room there?”

_A room_, she said, and it sounded so perfect to him. His heart flipped once and he picked up another piece of paper. “_Ja_. There are not many hotels there, but one had a room. I'm afraid it won't be like the Munich hotel...”

“It doesn't matter. The company will be fine.”

  
  


The Midnight Runner had an autopilot return function, so they didn't even have to find a place to leave the plane. Standing on the train platform in Munich, Kitty tried not to look at Kurt in his image-induced form. At her request, he was going as 'himself' but it was still unnerving. All the more so because he was attractive in his own right. She felt like a nervous teenager every time she looked at him. She looked at her ticket again as a rumble announced the approaching train.

“Ah, here it is,” Kurt said, staring down the track. It was a steam train, kept in beautiful condition and painted with little designs on all the cars.

“Not even remotely like the one we had in Excalibur's early days,” Kitty remarked, still not looking at him.

Kurt noticed. He hadn't said anything yet, but inside he was in turmoil. He should have gone as a movie star. Fred Astaire or Cary Grant or Gene Kelly. But she'd asked so nicely, and he always wanted to please her, and so he was standing here in his “normal Kurt” form, and she couldn't look at him. They climbed on board, found their seats, and settled in. He gave her the window seat and she thanked him. She gazed out the window in fascination—real or fabricated he wasn't sure yet—and he wanted to touch her cheek and hold her hand and whisper in her ear until she shivered. He decided to pass the time reading. He had several books, mostly for reading in the evening if they were tired, but this would do. She was acting so distant he didn't dare try to lean over her to see out the window as he'd originally thought he could do. Let her enjoy the scenery. He'd seen it all.

He had just opened the book when her hand moved to his wrist.

“What are you doing?” she said.

He lifted the book as answer. He didn't trust his voice completely.

“But why? You'll miss everything.” She tugged at his wrist a little, and he finally closed the book, tucking it next to him in the seat. Her hand moved down his wrist to his palm, and she laced her fingers between his.

“Is everything all right?” he finally said. She seemed fine in the Runner, talking and laughing and joking with him. The moment they stepped onto German soil and he turned on the inducer, she stopped talking and stopped looking at him. Was she still that uncomfortable with his appearance, even when he looked 'normal'?

“Yeah, of course,” she said, but didn't look at him.

“You've hardly said a word since we arrived.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose I'm just...excited or nervous or something.”

“Whatever for?”

She hesitated. “I know this is going to be hard on you. I don't really know...I'm not sure how to support you.”

“Looking at my face might help,” he said, his voice revealing a little too much of his feelings.

She snapped her head around to face him, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted in surprise. “I...” Already Kitty could feel the blush rising in her cheeks, but she couldn't stand the pain in his voice. “I didn't anticipate how disconcerting it would be to look at your face—” she lowered her voice, “_not covered in blue fuzz_.”

So it _was_ about his appearance.

This time he was the one to look away. “You _asked_...”

“I know. I _know_, and it's not _you_—it's just...” He heard her swallow. This was not how their vacation was supposed to start out. Not with this awkward discomfort between them. It had been years since she'd been afraid of him, and the idea that she might be again made his stomach twist.

He didn't know what to say, so he picked up the book again, but he couldn't read it. He stared at it blankly as the train began to chug and lurch and start on its way through the landscape. The trip was a disaster already and they hadn't even reached Winzeldorf. Maybe he should cancel it and go home.

He heard Kitty's sharp intake of breath and he realized she was genuinely upset. Movement from the corner of his eye made him glance up, and he caught sight of her wiping at the corner of her eye. He was torn between his desire to comfort her, and his fear that she did not want that at all. It shouldn't be so confusing, he thought.

“It's just...” she began again, still looking out the window, still wiping at her eyes. “It's so, um, _incongruous_ to see you looking like you but not you, and I wish you could just _be_ _you_.” She dug around in her bag for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes and nose before crumpling it and stuffing it into her pocket when she could find no trash container. “I hear your voice and it's _you_, but then I see you and...it's _not_ you, but it _is_, and...I didn't expect it to be so weird.”

He adjusted the device, peering cautiously around to see if anyone might notice before clicking the button on the side. “Better?” he said quietly and she looked at him.

Glassy brown eyes met fake blue ones as her mouth twitched up in a smile. “ At least Fred Astaire is familiar,” she said. “I'm sorry.” She laid a hand on his arm.

“I, too, am sorry. We should have done a test run.”

“Let's try to enjoy ourselves now, okay? At least for a little while.” She turned back to the window, but this time she tugged him closer. Kurt shoved the dividing armrest up and out of the way and scooted as close as he could without crushing her, and she leaned back against him. God it felt good to hold her, he thought. Better than any scenery out any train window. He rested one hand on her shoulder and while Kitty admired the waterfall in the distance and the flowers in the meadows and the mountains beyond, he inhaled the scent of her shampoo and let her hair brush up and stick to the invisible fuzz on his cheek.

They arrived in Winzeldorf in the early afternoon, and went first to the hotel to drop off their bags. Kurt found the hotel easily and was relieved the registration went off without trouble. Being such a small village, it was not unheard of for reservations to be lost or double-booked.

Key in hand, they went up two flights of stairs to the third floor of the small building.

“The hotel in Munich will be much more modern,” Kurt said, noting the wood beams and peeling paint. “But this should be sufficient for one... night...?” his voice trailed off as he opened the door to what appeared to be an attic corner. He couldn't call it a room. It was a corner. One small bed—barely twin size—stood under the gabled window, with a single chair to the side. That was it. He turned around, mouth slightly agape, and started to laugh. “I'll be right back,” he said as Kitty sat down in the little chair, staring at the tiny bed in the tiny room.

Ten minutes later, he returned, dragging a mattress roll and muttering to himself in German. “There are no other rooms. He gave me _this_,” Kurt said, tossing the roll on the ground. The room was so small, the mattress didn't even fit on the floor. Kitty looked at him with concern.

Kurt gave up and grabbed her hand. “Let's go out. All we have to do here is sleep. And we'll be in Munich tomorrow and it'll be much nicer.”

He was right of course, but she couldn't seem to do anything about the pit in her stomach. How exactly did he expect them to sleep here? One of them, sure, but not both. She would never expect him to share that tiny bed with her, and trying to find a space on the floor for the mattress roll was going to be difficult.

Kurt wasn't concerned. They'd figure something out later, and if it meant sharing a tiny bed, well, they'd slept on the couch after all. It didn't matter. It was one night. For now, he dragged Kitty back into the German sunshine and attempted to pry her good humor back out of her. “Okay, I want to give you the grand tour,” he said, keeping hold of her hand and swinging it idly.

At first, she resisted his grip, then realized she didn't want to let go of him. They walked the rest of the day hand-in-hand, while he showed her some of the sights. Not tourist sights, but places he remembered. There were good and bad memories, but he shared all of them with her. Here was the sweet shop where he bought suckers with his saved up spend money. Here was the fountain where his brother died. Here was the shop where the baker had been kind to him and called him clever. Here was the alley where the people tried to murder him.

They spent the afternoon and early evening wandering from place to place, until at last they came to the location of the proposed adventure park. There were stakes and plastic tape marking the expansive perimeter of the land. They stood silently at the edge of it, and she could almost see him etching it in his mind. She stood close to him, waiting patiently. He had brought a camera, but somehow it didn't seem relevant. Kitty took photos for him instead. Someday, he might want them.

Kurt pulled his hand from hers in a burst of energy that surprised her, even after all the years of learning his patterns, and he took off across the field, stalking through the knee-high grass. He stopped, bent to retrieve something, then returned to her side. In his hand were two flowers and some grass. He handed her a flower. “To remember this place,” he said.

“We can press them,” she said, and at his quizzical response she said, “Put them in a heavy book and leave them there, and it kind of preserves them.”

“They become flat?”

“Yeah, they'll be flat, but they dry out and you can save them. You could put them in a frame or something.”

He leaned over and kissed the side of her head, just at her hairline, then squeezed her shoulders fondly. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her chin on his shoulder. She could feel his breath in her hair, and his free hand was pressed tight against her spine. His voice was almost lost in the crush of their embrace. “I'm glad you're here.”

“Me, too.”

When he let go of her—reluctantly—Kitty asked if he wanted to stay longer, maybe sit under a tree for a while, but he shook his head.

“I have made my peace. And I think I would much rather continue having fun with you than feeling sorry for myself.”

“You aren't, though. It's a loss, and there's nothing wrong with feeling awful about it.”

“True, but I will have plenty of time for that. I have less than a week here with you.” He reached for her hand and she shifted the hand that held her flower so she could hold him in the other. They stopped at the hotel to wrap the flowers and grass in a napkin and stuff them into one of Kurt's books—not an ideal one, being paperback and rather small, but better than nothing.

For dinner they ate in the little pub across from the hotel, which served a surprising number of German beers and a basic selection of sandwiches and typical German fare. Kurt recounted the time Stephan had come to the same pub when he was only fifteen—still too young to drink, even in Europe—and tried to con the bartender into giving him beer. Instead, he gave him root beer and told him to come back when he was legal. Kurt, waiting outside in the shadows, laughed all the way back to the caravan, where Jimaine called him Carrot Boy for weeks.

After dinner, they sat in the center of the square on the edge of the fountain and watched the sunset between the rows of buildings and mountains.

“Tomorrow morning we will go to my museum,” Kurt said. “As promised.”

“Is your girlfriend going to be there?” Kitty teased.

“Most likely. She will probably want another kiss.” He grinned wickedly.

“_Another_? Kurt, do you kiss every woman you meet?”

“No...”

Kitty glared. She supposed technically it was true. He'd never kissed _her_, except little pecks on the cheek or in her hair.

“Depends on your definition of the word,” he said.

“You're terrible,” she said. “What time is the train back?”

“Three.”

Kurt hopped up on the ledge of the fountain and walked around it in the gathering darkness. When he came around to her, he flipped backwards onto the cobblestones and sat with a flourish. “I hesitate to return to the hotel,” he admitted, “Where there is not even a television in the room.”

“This is fine. It's nice. Nothing crazy happening, no villains attacking. It's peaceful. I'm in no hurry to go back either.”

Across the square faint notes of a song could be heard from someone's radio. Kurt grabbed Kitty's hand and hauled her to her feet, his other hand resting on her waist. “Dance?”

They danced until Kitty was breathless. She couldn't seem to look away from his face, not his own, but she could imagine his features. “I wonder,” she said, “since it's a hologram, if I get close enough to you, can I see the real you?” and she touched her forehead to his as he froze in place. Her nose touched his, just the tip, and she squinted. “Nope,” she announced, pulling back abruptly.

Shops were beginning to close, and Kurt whirled, scanning the square. “Aha, quickly, before they shut off the light.”

He dashed across the square and into the bakery. He was out again in less than a minute with a little brown bag.

“What'd you get in such a hurry?” she asked.

“A surprise. Something to enjoy in our cell,” he said, the smile making Kitty's heart beat a little faster. They started walking towards the hotel, Kitty following just behind Kurt, her hand on his back, lest she stumble on the bricks and stones that paved the square.

Upstairs, Kurt clicked on the light, shut the door, and turned off the inducer. Kitty was smiling broadly when he looked up. “That's better,” she said.

And something in him hitched.

“_Danke_,” he mumbled.

She began digging through her bag for pajamas, and left to find the hall bathroom to change. When she returned, he was struggling with the pallet again.

“Forget it,” Kitty said with a dismissive wave. “The bed's wider than the couch. It'll be fine.”

He straightened and if he hadn't known better, he would have thought she was _trying_ to tempt him.

He relented and dropped the pallet to the ground. He rolled it and stuffed it half under the bed. Kitty sat down cross legged at the edge of the bed and pointed to the paper bag. “So what's the surprise?”

He handed her the bag and she pulled out two different pastries.

“We can share,” he said.

Both were delicious. One raspberry, the other apple, both sweet and tart with flaky crusts that made a mess on the floor in spite of their best efforts.

Kitty brushed her teeth at the single sink in the hall bath, and while Kurt was out of the room doing the same, she crawled under the sheets and moved close to the wall, so Kurt could put out the light. He wouldn't trip over luggage in the dark.

It was pitch dark, too, once the light was out. There were no electronics glowing nor ambient light from neighboring houses to illuminate the room. It was as dark as any room ever got and it was a little disconcerting to know he could see her when she could see almost nothing, and certainly nothing of _him_.

He was a darker patch in the darkness until she felt him slide under the sheet beside her, the fuzz of his calves brushing hers. She flinched when his hand touched her face—not expecting it and unable to see the motion of his body in the dark. His thumb ran over her cheek softly and she felt herself moving towards him, slipping across the mattress...

Which she realized was dipping precariously in the middle.

Kurt rolled off the bed, made noises in the room that she could not identify, and then climbed back in. Once again, the mattress dipped, but this time he laughed quietly. “It's not going to break,” he said.

“I can't see anything,” she said, looking in the general direction of his face.

“I know. You don't need to. I looked under the bed, but everything is intact there. It is just old. I hope you do not mind the close company.”

She shook her head. “Not at all.” Then she felt tentatively for his chest and laid her cheek against it with a soft sigh.

He started to put his arm around her, then drew back. “Is it all right?”

“Yes. I like when you hold me.”

The ache in the center of his chest threatened to break it open and spill his heart to the floor. He'd thought himself so clever, dropping those little hinting things at her, and now it seemed she was doing the same.

He froze. _Was_ she doing the same?

“_K__ä__tzchen_?”

“Hmm?”

_I love you_. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yes. Are you?” Her voice was quiet and somewhat uncertain. He wondered why.

“Very.” He nuzzled into the crown of her head as her breath tickled the hair on his collarbone maddeningly. Then her fingers were there as well, brushing over his skin before settling.

“Thank you for bringing me,” she said in that same quiet, uncertain voice.

“Thank you for suggesting we come here.”

He could feel when she tilted her chin up, over his collarbone, to plant a small, chaste kiss on his jawline. “Good night,” she said.

Her lips hardly moved, only enough to form the words, so that when he tipped his head down to return the affection, they were right there. And whether it was the dark or high emotions or a momentary lapse of judgment, he let his lips dust across hers like a feather.

They were softer than he dreamed. “_Gute nacht_,” he managed to whisper.

  
  


She pulled him to her, tucking her face into his shoulder, and sighing contentedly. She didn't seem to have minded his hesitant kiss. Her eyes were closed, he saw when he tipped his head down, and she had a sleepy smile on her lips. He kept his arm around her as she fell asleep, and laid awake a long time.

He discovered at dawn that the curtains were far too thin. The sunlight woke him, and with the light came his worries. Would she ask about the kiss? What would he say if she did? Lie and say it meant nothing? Or tell the truth and possibly lose her?

Slowly and carefully he rolled away from her, hoping she wouldn't wake. She didn't, and he got up, surveying the tiny room as he went to the window to watch the sun rise over the tops of the houses until he heard her stirring.

“Kurt? Oh. Hi.” He turned around and smiled at her, as she rolled to her stomach and rubbed her eyes. “Good morning. Did you sleep okay?”

“_Ja_. Did you?” He felt wooden, like a robot answering her.

She seemed oblivious to his inner distress, and sat up, swinging her feet off the edge of the bed as she yawned. “Do they have breakfast here?”

“Not in this hotel.”

“Is everything okay?” Kitty said, finally sensing something amiss.

“_Ja_, of course. I had trouble sleeping,” he said, and it was true. “And I'm hungry.”

“Okay,” she said, “Well. Do you want to go get something to eat while I change? Or do you want to wait and we can go together?”

“I would be happy to bring you something.” He needed to walk away from her for a moment, to collect himself without the drug of her presence to distract him.

“I don't care. Anything,” she replied, still watching him carefully.

“I will bring you something delicious, then,” he said and went out the door.

Kitty heaved herself off the bed and got dressed. She didn't know why he seemed so uptight. Had he been uncomfortable last night? Should she have allowed him to sleep on the pallet after all? Maybe he hadn't wanted to share the bed and didn't know how to tell her without hurting her feelings, but now he felt weird about it. She hoped she hadn't ruined their vacation on the very first day.


	3. We'll Have Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They leave Winzeldorf behind and head into Munich. Things seem to be going just fine. But will it last?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, there were two beds. Does it matter? I don't think so.

They left their bags with the hotel clerk, who agreed to watch them after sticking them with the worst room in the hotel, then walked across the square and around the corner to the museum. Kitty didn't try to hold his hand, and he didn't reach for her either.

Kitty had wanted to see this place ever since he told her about it, and now that she was here, she wasn't sure she _did_ want to see it. Inside it was empty, except for Mara, who was bright and cheerful and _ecstatic_ to see that Nightcrawler had returned. He turned off the inducer as they stepped through the door, and as soon as she saw him, the curator and self-proclaimed biggest fan practically run over to greet him.

“Nightcrawler, you came back!” she gushed. “I'm so _flattered_! Thank you! And you brought a _friend_!” she hardly glanced at Kitty. Somehow she made the word sound like an insult.

“_Hallo_, Mara. It is nice to see you again,” Kurt crooned.

Mara actually looked a bit like herself, Kitty thought. Brown hair and eyes, not very tall, more freckles than she had though. She even had glasses, though Kitty only wore hers to read. She shook Mara's hand and told her how wonderful the museum was and how she couldn't wait to look around.

“I'll just start over there while you two catch up,” Kitty said, and stepped towards the closest display. She felt sick, but it was her own fault, one way or the other. She felt like a walking mistake.

Behind her, Mara prattled on about additions to the museum, and a couple of famous actors who'd stopped in one day. She heard Kurt's replies, placating and appreciative, but she dared not look at them. He'd probably kiss her again and she didn't want to see it.

When Kitty made her way around to the back of the museum, she finally stopped pretending to be interested and let her guard down for a moment. She was miserable. Being here only made it worse, reminding her of all his past girlfriends. Even that awful Bloody Bess had her photo in the museum. What had possessed him to hook up with _her_, Kitty wondered. He wasn't picky at all, she thought, then stopped. Wait, _was_ he? She considered what she knew. His long term interests were mostly blond, busty beauties Kitty had pegged as his 'type' but his _flings_...Bess didn't quite fit the type—short, and her hair...was it white? Kitty wasn't sure. And of course she didn't know _all_ of his flings. She glanced back at Mara through the crowd of statues and displays. Mara wasn't any of those things, either. Had he only _kissed_ her? Maybe he'd taken her to the same hotel and slept with her, too. If he wasn't picky, if he slept with any interested woman...what did that mean? Kitty tried to push the thought from her mind, but it lingered, as if punishing her for having it at all. She took another long minute and forced herself to stop this line of thinking. Nothing had happened. Nothing. They were still friends, they were on vacation, and dammit, she would have a good time if it killed her.

It took her longer than she would have liked, but she straightened her shoulders and held her head high. Once she was under control again, she made her way around the other side of the room towards the entrance, where Mara and Kurt were still standing.

“How did you like it?” Kurt said, barely glancing in her direction at all.

“It was great,” Kitty said. “It's incredible how much you've collected, Mara.”

“Miss Keller plans to visit England soon, and has promised to stop by Muir Island to visit.”

_Miss Keller_? “That would be wonderful,” Kitty lied.

“Shall we go? We must have lunch before we catch our train,” Kurt said, kissing Mara's hand as he bowed low.

Mara blushed and giggled and thanked them both for coming to the museum. Kitty followed Kurt out, totally numb inside. He clicked the image inducer back on.

“I thought the train was at three?” she said when they had walked far enough from the museum that Mara couldn't overhear.

“It is. But I did not want her to join us. It is _our_ vacation, not hers.”

“Oh.”

“I'm afraid there is not much else to do here in Winzeldorf.”

“That's okay. We can just wander around.”

  
  


The train brought them chugging into the Munich station just after five, and Kitty was ready to eat again. So far their vacation had been only two days and was already a whirlwind of ups and downs. Check-in first, and then dinner, she thought, as she dragged her suitcase down the sidewalk towards Hotel Laimer Hof. Kurt pointed to it when they got close, and Kitty's eyes went wide.

“That's the hotel? It's like a tiny castle-house.”

“_Ja_.”

She looked at him askance. “It's beautiful.”

His grin was positively devilish as he shrugged. “I thought you might like it.”

This room was much nicer than the one in Winzeldorf, though Kitty admitted even a basic room at the Holiday Inn was better than that place was. But this...the two beds were made of brass with swirls in the headboards. There was a desk and a gable window overlooking the street below.

“Can we eat?” Kitty said, dropping her bag at the foot of one bed.

“Of course,” Kurt said. “It's a little early, but perhaps we could walk the streets for a while and look for somewhere nice to eat.” He sidled up to her and put his hand in her hair. “If you like, after dinner we can find somewhere to dance.”

“We didn't put dancing on the list,” she teased.

“Does it _have_ to be on the list?”

Kurt was not as familiar with Munich as he was with Winzeldorf, but his infallible sense of direction meant they wouldn't get lost very easily. They soon stumbled upon a cute outdoor restaurant, with lights over the awning.

“Will this do?” Kurt asked when he saw Kitty's face.

“Sure!”

Kitty had been on dates. She'd been to nice restaurants a few times, to a play with Piotr way back when they were first together, before things got strange. Pete Wisdom had never taken her anywhere fancy, though. In fact, when she thought about it, there was only one time she could remember going anywhere _really_ fancy.

“This is so much better than dinner with Courtney Ross,” Kitty said, as the host seated them on the patio.

“When did you have dinner with her?”

“Oh. That was when you guys were lost. It was my birthday, and I was really upset, and she did all this crazy stuff. This was before we found out she was really Sat-Yr-9.”

Kurt didn't like to remember when Kitty was separated from them, when she'd been lost during their cross-time caper. He had turned around, it seemed, and she was gone. Rachel scanned for her desperately, but there was no trace of her. And then Widget had jaunted, hurrying, as if looking for her, too. The rest of the caper, he'd spent with his stomach in knots, trying to be strong for the others, and dying inside. He was a master at the brave face, and he'd played the part for months.

He must have looked miserable now, though, because Kitty said, “Hey, it's all right. Long past.” she gave him a reassuring smile. “Anyway, she took me to this super fancy restaurant in London and—”

The waitress appeared, and took their drink orders, and they looked at the menu for a moment before Kitty finished her story.

“So it was this super fancy restaurant and expensive, too. She helped me order champagne—”

“Champagne? But weren't you...”

“Fifteen? Yeah. Crazy, right? Anyway, we took a private jet to Paris and I spent all night dancing on this boat on a river with a French guy named Jean Luc.”

“Why did you never tell me any of this?”

Kitty gave a shy laugh. “Because I figured I'd get a lecture, or you'd try to kill her.”

“I would not have,” he said. Then, at Kitty's knowing look, he amended. “All right, I may have lectured you. Or her.”

“I got so drunk, too. Not so great the next morning.”

Kurt was glad when the waitress returned with their drinks and they ordered food. He needed a distraction for a moment. Thinking of his _K__ä__tzchen_, being taken to fancy restaurants, given champagne, taken to Paris... He took a long drink of his beer.

“You look upset,” Kitty said, sipping her own drink. She reached across and tapped one finger on his hand.

“I'm all right. I'm surprised to hear all of this. I had no idea.”

“A lot of stuff happened while we were separated. I was so glad to get back with you all.”

“I was glad to find you, as well.”

The food arrived, and they ate in silence for a little while.

Afterwards, they found a place where there was dancing, and not club dancing, either. How Kurt found it, Kitty didn't know—unless he'd planned ahead—but she was delighted, and they spent hours there. When they finally returned to the hotel, she was exhausted.

“Did you see the woman in the red dress?” Kitty asked as Kurt unlocked the door.

“_Nein_, which one?”

“I think that was Amelia Trask.”

“What would she be doing in a ballroom dance hall in Munich?”

“No, I mean she was on the _street_ earlier. I wasn't sure, and then we were dancing...It was just weird.” Kitty kicked her shoes off and sat down at the foot of her bed. “Ah. Better. I wasn't sure it was her, but the more I think about it, the more I think it might have been her.”

“That is odd. I don't know of any Trask holdings here in Germany, but they could have acquired something recently.” Kurt had turned off the image inducer the moment the door was shut, and Kitty soaked in the sight of his fuzzy blue face as he dug in his bag for pajamas.

She went to the bathroom—their own, not a hall bath—changed and got ready for bed. Kurt was already in pajamas when she returned. She was so tired she thought she might fall asleep even with the lights on. She was surprised when she felt the edge of the bed sink, and Kurt's hand on her back.

“Good night, _K__ä__tzchen_,” he said with a fond pat. She pushed up a little and gave him a peck on the cheek which he returned.

“Good night, Kurt.”

  
  


The next day they went to the Munich Residence, which was full of ornately decorated walls, paintings, and beautiful furnishings. They wandered through the open rooms for several hours, and then went to the Viktualmarket in the early afternoon.

They sat under a tree in a park with their lunch, and enjoyed the quiet peace of nothing terrible happening. They had the food spread out on napkins in front of them, almost a picnic, and there was none of the previous tension from the night in Winzeldorf. It felt like a real vacation with her friend, even if he did look like Fred Astaire instead of Kurt Wagner.

“Look,” Kitty said, stabbing Kurt's knee with her finger. “There she is again. I swear that's Amelia Trask,” Kitty said, keeping her voice very low. Kurt glanced surreptitiously in the direction she indicated, and agreed that she certainly did look like the Trask woman. Amelia had taken over the Trask Corporation after the rest of them were either jailed, killed, or stepped down. Chances of her being as corrupt as the rest of the family were high.

“We should keep an eye on her,” Kitty said as she chewed.

“Never a dull moment,” Kurt remarked as he finished his lunch.

Each place they went that afternoon, they kept watch for Amelia Trask, but did not see her any more that day. Dinner was another nice meal, at a little out of the way place that was quiet and less expensive.

“My treat tonight,” Kitty said, “Though I think I'm getting off easy.”

“I didn't mind paying last night. It was my pleasure,” he assured her with a grin. She wished she could see his teeth, his _real_ teeth, and his _real_ eyes. On a whim she reached out and touched his curls, letting her fingers pass over his ear. The hologram did nothing for the actuality of him, and she could feel the point of his ear beneath her fingers.

“Uh..._K__ä__tzchen_?” Kurt said, and she withdrew her fingers, blushing.

“Sorry. I just miss the real you. It would be more fun if you didn't have to hide,” she explained, still warm from her blush.

“I wish the same.” He didn't press the issue, nor did he tell her how nice it felt, her fingers grazing the edge of his ear, where the skin was particularly sensitive.

After they paid, they strolled slowly back to the hotel, not in any hurry to sit in the room.

“No dancing tonight?” Kurt said with a grin.

“No, I think last night was enough for one vacation.” She had her hand in his, and he swung her arm as they walked, occasionally spinning her as if they were dancing.

“Tomorrow we are scheduled for a bus tour and the Nymphenburg palace. Still agreeable to both?” Spin.

“Yep,” she replied, walking backwards, “You?” Spin.

“Mm-hm. Have you discovered anything else while we've been here that you might like to do or see?”

“Not really, I mean, we've kind of been doing them as we think of them. The bus tour tomorrow might give me an idea. Why, is there some block of time we've got open?”

“No, I just want to make sure you get to see all the sights you're interested in.” Spin.

“You're sweet. Thanks.” He dipped her and she squealed as he spun her back around again. “Maybe we should have gone dancing again.”

“_Danke, schatz_. Ah, here we are at the hotel.” As he held the door for her, he said, “We _did_ dance.”

Upstairs in their room, Kurt flipped through the channels as he settled back on his bed. Kitty was on hers, checking email on her phone. Slim legs stuck out of her pajama shorts, part of a set Kurt had seen many times before, that always made him smile to himself because they were covered in binary code.

“Where did you even find pajamas with computer code on them?” he asked.

Kitty looked up from her email and set the phone down. “Online. You can find almost anything. Why, do you want special jammies, too?”

“I doubt they have pirate sleepwear for adults.”

“Ha, I bet they do!” She did a quick search on her phone and hopped over to show him, proudly displaying the image of pirate pajama pants. “And there's more,” she said, climbing up beside him and scrolling through all the options. “This is only one site. There's plenty more.”

“That's...incredible,” he said at last, a little overwhelmed, but happy that she'd joined him. She was so enthusiastic, he hated to stop her. She put the phone down abruptly and gave a light chuckle.

“Sorry. Got a little carried away, didn't I?” She went over to the wall and plugged in her phone, then sprawled out on her own bed.

Kurt reclined against his pillows and folded his arms, turning his attention back to the movie he'd found on TV. It was an old murder mystery, one he'd heard of but hadn't seen, and it was only a few minutes into it.

“I wish we had popcorn,” Kitty said from her place on the other side of the room.

“_Ja_,” he replied, trying not to sound unhappy. “They might have some downstairs. Would you like me to check?”

“You'll miss the movie. I can do without.”

He didn't answer, instead reached for the lamp on the table between them. She cast a longing glance at him, which he noticed, but didn't know how to respond to.

“Hey, before you turn that off, would it be okay if I sit with you? We always watch movies together...” her voice trailed off.

“Of course,” he said, spirits lifting. “Always, _schatz_. You do not have to ask.”

“I do when it's your bed,” she replied, her cheeks turning pale pink.

He wanted to say she didn't have to ask then, either. Once she was settled beside him, he turned off the light and they sat back to watch the old movie.

Kurt was barely visible in the dark room, and it was odd to try to see him in the shadows. She knew he was there, but her eyes told her it was only darkness. She reached out to touch him a few times, confirming with touch what her eyes could not.

“You keep disappearing,” she said when he eyed her.

“I assure you, I am here. I don't plan to leave.” _Not while you're here in my arms_, he added silently.

She held his hand and as the movie played on, she traced his fingers with her own, an idle motion that began to have a not-so-idle effect on him. He pulled his hand away gently and draped it over her shoulder, tucking her close to his chest and popping a kiss on her head. A few minutes later, she had his other hand in hers, doing the same thing. He thought he'd die of frustration. He allowed himself a few moments to fantasize about kissing her, pulling her into his arms and letting her put her hands to better use. It was a mistake to let his thoughts turn in that direction, and he quickly focused on the movie again.

When had he grown so lapse in his defenses against her? It seemed everything she did lately had _that_ effect on him. If he couldn't get himself under control, she was sure to notice and then what? Would she pity him, reject him, laugh at him? He couldn't bear it. But no, this was Kitty, and she wouldn't do that. No, she would be kind, she would be gentle, and she would tell him she loved him as her friend, and nothing more, and it would be so much worse. Her kindness would break his heart.

She must have sensed something. “Are you okay?” How did she always know?

“_Ja_, of course.”

“You seem like something's on your mind, all these deep sighs.”

“Ah.” _Verdammt_. “Nothing is wrong. I probably need some sleep.”

“Okay,” she said, but she sounded like she didn't believe him.

_I'm in love with you_. He couldn't tell her. He couldn't. He scooted lower still, and crossed his feet the other way.

Kitty was drowsy by the end of the movie, and didn't get up right away when it went off. Kurt turned the television off and they half-lay together in the dark, silent. She should get up, she knew. He was waiting for her to go. This was his bed. Long minutes passed where she reprimanded herself for even thinking those thoughts, before she finally pushed herself upright.

“Good night,” she said, trying to keep her voice light and calm.

He passed his hand over her face, tucking hair behind her ear. She froze, let her eyes close, took a shaky breath. She was so _obvious_, she thought, he must be laughing at her inside. His other hand reached up, gently pulling her head back down to rest on his chest as he stroked her hair and her back and kissed the top of her head. She didn't fight him. She didn't even utter one protest. She was weak. She shouldn't be here, not like this. He couldn't possibly want anything from her but her friendship, so why was he encouraging her to stay close to him? _Loneliness_, she decided. He missed Amanda. Homesickness. Sadness over the loss of the land in Winzeldorf. She found a thousand reasons, and she still didn't try to get up again.

It grew later, and she struggled to stay awake, the motion of his hand on her back soothing her and making her sleepier with each pass. She finally managed to form thoughts, then words. “I'm so tired.”

He didn't reply in words, only tugged at the sheet beneath them, kicking it down with his feet as he slid the pillows down, still cradling her in his arms. “What are you...?” she said.

“Will you stay?” he said, and he sounded almost frightened. She blinked up at him in the dark, his luminous eyes watching her face.

“Okay.”

She felt him relax then roll to his side, still rubbing her back lightly as sleep overcame her.

She woke with her back to his chest, one fuzzy arm thrown over her and the other beneath her cheek. She waited for the panic to set in, but it didn't. There was nothing terrifying about where she was, nothing about it she didn't want, other than to know what the hell had come over him. He stirred slightly, one long foot brushing the back of her calf as he stretched awake.

“_Guten Morgen_,” he said, making no move to get up or roll away from her.

“Hi,” she said, then yawned. She turned her head, rolling onto her back so she could see him. She wanted to see his face. He wasn't smiling. “Did you sleep well?”

“_Ja_. Did you?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed and said, “So, um, what was that about last night?”

He had been expecting a question of this sort. He'd already mulled over his answers, settling on an explanation that wasn't a lie, but didn't reveal the depth of his motives. He half-shrugged on his side. “It was cozy, and you are dear to me. I didn't want you to leave.”

“Oh.” It seemed perfectly logical, Kitty thought, and seemed to reinforce her idea that he was lonely and feeling nostalgic. Too bad it wasn't something else.

“We should get breakfast. We have the palace to see today.” He didn't move.

Kitty did. She sat up and stretched, unaware of his eyes tracing the curves of her body. “Guess we better get moving then.”

And she was gone. No more reason to stay in bed, he thought. When he came out of the bathroom, she was standing at the foot of her bed, staring at him.

“What?”

“I'm just waiting for you to come out.”

Of course. He bowed to her, and she made a playful curtsy before passing him and shutting the door behind her.

  
  



	4. Then It All Fell Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A single decision is really going to mess up this vacation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some violence in this chapter. It's mostly just suggested or said, "this is going to happen" but if it bothers you, proceed with caution. If you need to skip, I'll summarize in the notes afterwards.

Walking back from the palace, they saw Amelia Trask again. The morning had passed in relative normalcy—breakfast at a little cafe, touring the palace, talking and laughing as if nothing awkward had happened at all. Kitty was glad. The entire vacation had turned into a test of questionable behavior on both their parts, and she believed now that he only missed Amanda and was looking for some affection from _her_ because she was _here_. She could deal with that. She could deal with anything, as long as she knew the truth—that it wasn't really about _her_.

When they saw Trask hurrying along the street, a small box tucked under her arm, they decided to follow her out of curiosity and see where she went. It was easy, the streets were crowded with tourists looking for places to eat. Kurt's inducer kept his identity hidden, and Kitty simply stayed out of Trask's view, behind Kurt. Trask turned down a narrow alley, and Kurt took to the roof while Kitty phased through the buildings, following her around several twists.

She finally emerged onto another street and ducked into some type of doctor's office. “_Dermatologen_” read a sign over the door.

Kurt gave Kitty an odd look as he dropped beside her down the street from the building in question. “What could she be doing in there?” Kitty asked rhetorically.

He shrugged. “Appointment?”

Somehow, Kitty didn't think so. Why would she be carrying a package? She didn't work there, did she? Kitty didn't think that was likely, either. “Let's see if she comes back out.”

They walked down the street until they found a touristy store to stop in, staying near the windows as they pretended to browse. Then they went farther down the street, turned and went back in the other direction. After over an hour Trask still had not come out.

“Something isn't right,” Kitty said.

“I agree. I'll go around back to see what I can see.” And he disappeared in a puff of brimstone smoke. Kitty pretended to window shop until he returned, touching her elbow lightly as he reported what he found. “I don't think it's a dermatologist.”

The back of it looked like a warehouse, he told her, half hidden by the other shops and a line of trees that obscured the vaulted roofline from the street. There were no windows, not even near the roof, and no skylights. They both agreed it was suspicious, and Kitty sent a message to the team to have them monitor this part of the country for sentinel activity.

After another backwards glance at the building, they decided to formulate a plan before proceeding with anything else. The two of them could handle Trask easily enough, but if she had sentinels in there, it could be bad news. When they defeated the sentinels in Rachel's timeline, they had an entire team, aided by friends of Rachel's from her time. Plus, they'd had the power of Phoenix as well as powerful alien technology, courtesy of Cerise. Right now, they were down to five actual members of Excalibur. They didn't know where Rachel was, and Cerise was in space serving time for crimes against the Shi'Ar. Kylun, Micromax, and Feron were gone. Brian and Meggan retired to be married and maybe have a family. And right now, it was only two of them here. Fighting sentinels was definitely off the table at this point.

They found another cafe, ordered tea and coffee and pastries, and worked out a plan. Kitty would use Kurt's image inducer and go in as a prospective client. Her German was good enough to pass, he promised. He would hide in the shadows behind the building. She would leave her phone on, muted so she couldn't hear him but he could hear her. She'd find out what she could and then leave with an appointment she wouldn't keep.

“I don't want to take any unnecessary risks,” Kurt said, uneasiness seeping into his gut. “This is just to see what we can learn.”

“I agree. I don't want to deal with any sentinels, either. Trust me, I have no desire to play hero today.” She patted his hand. “Anyway, I'm not worried. You'll be right here, and you can always swoop in and save me if I become a damsel in distress.”

“I can't imagine you ever being that helpless, _K__ä__tzchen_, but I am always willing to save you.”

“Me too.”

He grinned, still nervous, “That is why we're friends.”

She was nervous, too, though, and he could hear it when she teased him back, “So that's all I'm good for? Saving your fuzzy blue butt?”

“Who else is going to?”

Kurt never liked sending Kitty into dangerous situations, but he trusted her, and he knew she could take care of herself. He stationed himself behind the building, tucked away in the shadows, while they tested the phone connection. He tossed her the inducer, set as they had configured, and she went inside. It's only reconnaissance, he told himself. Nothing to worry about. Kitty knew what she was doing.

The foyer was bright and looked like a doctor's waiting room should. “/Hello, I'd like to see the doctor about a skin condition,/” she said in German, the way she'd practiced with Kurt earlier. She laid her phone on the counter, the screen asleep though the call continued.

“/What's your condition?/” asked the secretary, eyeing her carefully.

“/I have small bumps on my arms and a rash./”

She and the secretary went back and forth a bit, while Kitty casually scanned what she could see of the room.

“/You can come back now,/” said a nurse, who had come to the door. Kitty had not expected to see a someone so immediately. “/Follow me./”

Follow or leave? Kitty hesitated briefly, then followed the nurse, while outside, Kurt wished she'd make an excuse and leave.

The nurse led Kitty into the back, where there appeared to be consultation rooms as in any other doctor's office. She opened the door of one and showed Kitty inside. “/The doctor will be with you shortly,/” she said, and her smile was not pleasant as she shut the door behind her. The moment she left, Kitty sprang to her feet. The door was locked. There were no windows, but for Kitty this wasn't a problem.

Until she found she could not phase through the walls. She didn't panic yet. Someone was bound to come into the room at some point, and she could phase through _them_ and out the door. She whispered into her phone and took it off mute.

“_K__ä__tzchen_, I think you should get out of there,” was the first thing he said when she unmuted it.

She whispered back, “I'd like to, but I can't. There's something wrong with the walls. I can't phase through them.”

“I'm coming for you,” he replied.

“I don't want to give everything away just yet. I have an idea. Just give me—shit, someone's here.” She muted the phone and tucked it into her pocket.

A tall man entered, followed by the nurse from earlier. They looked like medical professionals, though Kitty had begun to suspect they were anything _but_.

Outside, behind the building, Kurt's gut was twisted in unease. There was something terribly wrong, and Kitty was sitting in the middle of it. Without her ability to phase free, he feared what they might manage to do to her. He crept along the roofline, unable to hide in the patches of bright sunlight, and without an image inducer to disguise himself. He couldn't set foot in the building without giving himself away immediately. That had to be the last resort, because it meant compromising everything. He had no other choice but to wait. Over the phone, he listened as people entered the room and spoke to her.

The two shut the door as soon as they entered, blocking her exit once again. She pretended not to be suspicious, sitting demurely in the chair as the 'doctor' greeted her.

“/What can we do for you, miss Wagner?/” he asked. Even in the midst of a mission, she felt the butterflies in her stomach when he called her that. She had _only_ used his last name because it was German and easy to remember. Certainly no other reason.

She explained again her feigned condition, and the doctor looked her over.

“/Ah yes, I believe we have just the thing to help you. Follow me,/” he said, and he and the nurse headed into the corridor. She was torn between discovering their “cure” and getting out of there, but knowing she could not simply phase free was motivation enough to bolt.

The moment she was in the hall, she ran, stopped by the door to the waiting room, which was locked. She couldn't get through it. She turned, ran another way, but each time was blocked by walls she could not pass through. “I'm trapped in here,” she said into the phone. She hadn't unmuted it, and didn't have time to while she climbed a desk and tried the ceiling. No luck. She heard footsteps and leaped to the floor, casting about for anything she could use against them.

They looked perfectly calm when they found her. “/I changed my mind,/” she said, “/I want to leave./”

“/I'm afraid that isn't possible, miss Wagner. But there is nothing to be afraid of if you simply follow me. We will clear your skin up right away./” The false doctor's smile was anything but pleasant, and Kitty considered using the chair as a weapon. She could take these two out easily, but then what? She was still trapped, and she didn't know what kind of defenses they had in here.

She decided to cooperate a little longer. Perhaps if she played along a bit more, she could learn what they were really doing, and find another way out. Or maybe Kurt could find a way inside.

“/All right. I will. I just had a bit of a panic attack,/” she said. “/I'm all right now./”

It didn't matter whether or not they believed her at this point. They knew she was stuck. She followed them back down the halls, noting for the first time how empty the place was. The 'doctor' opened a door at the back and the nurse shoved Kitty through, hard. She stumbled, and before she could return the favor to the nurse, she was mesmerized by the machinery and equipment. The room—massive in its own right—was full of computers and lab equipment. There were giant tubes reminiscent of the one she'd been stuck in when she was attacked by the Marauders, before her phasing was brought under control by Dr. Doom. There were people inside these tubes, too, floating silently. Kitty couldn't tell if they were alive or dead. Below them was a bank of monitors and computers, and behind the circular dais of tubes were rows and rows of machinery, reaching to the ceiling.

“/What is this place?/” she asked, not expecting an answer.

“/This is where we cure our patients,/” the 'doctor' said. He gestured to a chair. “/Won't you have a seat?/”

“/I'd rather stand./”

From the shadows, a burly man appeared with a taser that shocked her to her knees when he slammed it into her back. As she gasped for breath, the burly man hefted her into the chair, dropping her in roughly. Her head slammed against the back of the metal chair and made her see stars.

This was bad, _really_ bad, and getting worse by the second. She had to think fast or she was going to end up in one of those tanks, and not even Kurt would be able to save her. She fought the burly man as he clamped restraints over her wrists, but without leverage to kick, or intangibility to ghost away, she was screwed. Kitty was certain now that the people in the tubes were dead. The metal clamps on the chair locked with a key, which was on a lanyard around the nurse's neck. If she could get it...she would still be stuck. She couldn't twist her hands around to unlock the straps.

The doctor and nurse busied themselves with their backs to her. Kitty could hear the clink of tools and her heart raced. There had to be a way out of this. She just had to think. A clue for Kurt, perhaps?

“/This looks like a warehouse,/” she said. The two fake practitioners ignored her. “/How big is this place anyway? We're what, twenty feet from the East wall of it?/” Her estimate of space was not going to be enough to get him in here safely, she knew. But she had to try. “/And those ceilings...they're higher than normal warehouses. Is that because of the equipment everywhere? What do you use that stuff for, anyway?/”

Still no responses from the two in lab coats, and Kurt didn't appear, either. Could he not hear her? The phone was in her pocket, so that was possible. Had something happened to him? She felt her stomach sink. What if they'd found him and captured him, too? She looked around, almost frantic to assure herself he wasn't a prisoner. Finally the two impostors turned back to her. The man's smile was wicked, and he looked more like a devil than Kurt had on his worst days. In his hand was a scalpel and a syringe.

“/What's in the syringe?/” Kitty tried to pull away but couldn't move.

“/Anesthesia./” He laughed, and Kitty shivered. Maybe it was really poison and they were going to kill her right here in the chair.

“/What are you going to do to me?/” Kitty tried unsuccessfully to keep the tremor from her voice.

“/Why, I'm going to slice off your skin./”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kurt and Kitty follow Amelia Trask, who enters a fake dermatologist's office. They concoct a plan to spy on her, but Kitty gets stuck inside a building she can't phase out of, and Kurt can't teleport in. The building is used to harvest and grow skin for some new sentinels the Trasks are building, an idea she got from Terminator movies. They have captured Kitty and she is injured.


	5. Help From Some Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt rescues Kitty, who is not a damsel in distress, but needs help anyway, because all heroes sometimes need help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing medical about anything. It's all made up. Suspension of disbelief is my motto.

Kurt had been trying to teleport into the building ever since she'd run in the hallway, but whatever was keeping her _in_ was also keeping him out. When the man said he was going to slice her skin off, Kurt dropped to the street, heedless of the astonished stares, and went in through the front door. The woman at the front desk shot to her feet when he entered, but he leaped over her desk, catching her around the throat before she could alert anyone. “/Get me back there _now_,/” he said. She reached for a button and the door swung open. He gave her a swift tap to knock her out, and bolted through the doorway before the woman had finished slumping to the ground. Several guards rushed at him from nowhere, but he knocked them out easily. Kurt, when he was really angry, could be vicious. Kitty had witnessed it once, in the basement of Cloud Nine, when she and Cerise were in danger and he was all that stood between them and certain death. He fought much the same way now, taking out the guards mercilessly. He could still hear Kitty through the phone speaker, and the awful sounds she made drove him forward.

At the end of the corridor was another door, also locked. It required a card key to enter, and he ripped one off an unconscious guard. The door opened with a chunk. He emerged into the warehouse portion of the building, where more guards immediately attacked. The two white-coated people standing beside Kitty ran towards the back, taking the key with them. They were covered in blood.

“Kurt, she has the key!”

Kitty watched helplessly as he pummeled the guards one after the other. As soon as the last one fell to the ground, Kurt leaped over the fallen men to Kitty's side. He tried once to teleport her out of the chair, but like her phasing ability, it didn't work. He took the inducer off her wrist and tucked it in his pocket as he ran after the whitecoats.

He caught a shock of white tearing behind a big machine, and bolted for it. While she sat trapped, Kitty studied everything she could see. The lab equipment, anything on a computer screen, the layout of the room. She tried not to think about the slice of skin missing from her arm, or the supposed anesthetic they'd injected, which she didn't think was anesthetic at all.

She waited. Waited longer. There was nothing else she could do. He didn't return, and she became worried, and then frightened. But the doctor didn't return, either, and until _that_ happened, she told herself he wasn't dead or caught. She heard footsteps behind her, distinctly feminine, and no matter how she turned her head, she couldn't see the person. She guessed it was Amelia Trask.

“So. You're Kitty Pryde,” said a voice in English.

“Who are you?” she replied.

“You already know who I am.” She walked around in front of Kitty and leaned over her. “I'm Amelia Trask. And I'm going to kill you and keep your skin for my sentinels. How does it feel to know you're going to help me kill the rest of your kind?”

“Pretty shitty, actually. I'd really rather punch your lights out.”

Amelia laughed. She glanced over her shoulder and Kitty saw the doctor striding between the machines, his hand clutching something. “And here is our good 'doctor' now, to extract more samples from you.” She tracked a finger across Kitty's cheek, then turned to him. “Your face will make a lovely sentinel, won't it Doctor?”

Trask smiled at the doctor, who punched her in the stomach and then bashed her forehead into his knee, knocking her unconscious. Kitty smiled in recognition as Kurt unlocked the chair restraints. She rocketed out of it and into his arms. Her head spun, and blood dribbled onto the floor, but she'd been here far too long already and she wasn't going to let a little blood loss stop her now. Kurt used the guard's card key to let them out, and as soon as they were outside the building, he teleported them to the hotel room. It was quite a distance, and with a passenger, it was a strain.

They both collapsed on the floor, Kurt panting and wheezing as he struggled to sit up and tend her, and Kitty's stomach recoiling from such a 'port. Her arm had been bleeding for a while and she had lost enough blood to make her light headed. Kurt ripped off the labcoat he still wore and tucked it under her arm to soak up any more blood. Why wouldn't it stop bleeding? Kitty wondered as her head began to swim.

She could hear Kurt doing something in the bathroom, and he returned with a clean towel. He pressed it against her arm, _hard_, and she protested groggily. “It's just a scratch,” he said, “Buck up, _schatz_, you've had worse than this. Don't be such a girl,” he said at last, hoping to rile her up.

“_Am_ a girl.” she slurred. “Took too long.”

“I know, I'm sorry. I couldn't teleport in.” The towel was soaking with blood and he feared she would die before he could get it stopped. “_K__ä__tzchen_,” he said as her eyes fluttered closed. “Kitty, wake up. We need to call Hank. Get my phone. Come on, _meine liebste_, you must stay awake.”

Through the fog in her brain she listened to Kurt's voice. Vaguely she understood that he wanted her to do something. She was just so tired, she wasn't sure she could do it. “Hmmm?” was all she managed.

“The phone, I can't reach it while I'm holding the towel. I dare not let go of it.”

“Phone.”

“That's it.”

It took all her will, but she managed to pull her own phone from her pocket. It landed on the floor next to her, still connected to Kurt's.

“Call Hank, _schatzi_, please.”

By some miracle, she managed to end the call with Kurt's phone, and dial Hank, before she passed out.

  
  


Kurt didn't know what they'd administered to her or why, but Hank was able to give him some detailed instructions on getting the bleeding stopped. Once that was done, he called Muir Island and spoke at length to Moira and Piotr. Kitty, in the bed asleep, was pale, but stable. Kurt's hands still shook when he looked at her and considered how close he'd come to losing her. He berated himself silently for going along with that fool plan in the first place. They should have stuck to their vacation. But now they knew there was a sentinel factory of some kind, and that they were taking _skin_ from people and using it to somehow manufacture a new breed of sentinel.

It reminded him of the Terminator movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Robots covered in human skin that passed as humans until they killed someone, or someone ripped off their skin to expose their robot parts. Was that what Trask was doing? God help them if she was.

While Kitty slept, he packed their things and threw out the blood-soaked towel and coat. They'd have to check out early. Trask was sure to come looking for them, and it wouldn't take much to find their reservation under his name—which she had used when she went in. He didn't know if he was more excited or upset that she'd done that. But it didn't matter now. He didn't want to do anything until Kitty was awake, unless he had to.

Piotr, Rahne, and Douglock would be joining them shortly. Hank was sending a few of the X-Men as well, Logan among them, and Kurt knew he'd be irritated if he thought Kurt had put Kitty in harm's way. He still saw himself as a father figure to her, or at the very least a mentor. Either way, she was special to him. Sometimes he wondered if Logan had had a daughter in another lifetime, if maybe she had died, and that led to his near-constant search for surrogate daughters.

Kurt's thoughts drifted this way and that while she slept on, and he checked the wound whenever he passed by her. The call came in from Douglock that they had arrived, and made arrangements at another hotel under a false name. They'd even marked them checked in, so all he had to do was request a new card key at the front desk.

“Kitty's still sleeping, Douglock. I can't very well carry her into the hotel like that. You and the others get the key. I'll have to teleport her into the room if she doesn't wake up soon.” He wrote down the location of the new room, too far to teleport without exact coordinates, and began working out how to get her there without drawing suspicion.

An hour later, Kurt was beginning to pace in worry when she finally made a noise. He was by her side in an instant, and when her eyes shuttered open, he could hardly control his relief.

“I'm gonna be sick,” she said, and relief was suddenly not very important. Luckily, the trash bin was nearby.

He removed it to the bathroom, leaving it in the shower to be rinsed later, and brought her some water.

“You should drink now, _schatz_,” he said. “Hank said to expect the queasiness, but you must drink.”

She sipped at the cup he held to her lips, then lay back heavily on the pillow. “Thanks,” she whispered.

“I'm sorry I couldn't get to you sooner. I'm _so_ sorry.”

“Stop.”

“_K__ä__tzchen_, we have to leave. We've been here too long already.”

Her eyes widened as she understood. “Where to?”

He explained that the others were here, and they had a new hotel room waiting. They just had to get there. She tried to sit up, managed it with Kurt's help, and had to close her eyes while the room swam. Kurt handed her the water glass, and a piece of fruit he'd gotten from downstairs, which she ate while he sat with his arm around her shoulders.

She held out a weak hand and requested his image inducer. “I have an idea.” A few minutes fiddling with the settings, and then a test. It worked. They were both cloaked with the same inducer, as long as she stayed by his side. Kurt piled luggage as efficiently as he could for the trip downstairs, then called Piotr. He sent Rahne to meet them, being one of the newer members, it was less likely Trask or her people would recognize her. Douglock was too obviously different, and she knew Piotr. He was impossible to hide without an inducer, which they did not have for him.

Carefully, Kurt helped Kitty to her feet. Her knees wobbled, but she was determined to stand and walk downstairs. He told her he'd packed all their stuff while she was sleeping, and she thought he might be the most wonderful human on the planet, until she remembered the trash can.

When he checked out, he explained that his friend had become ill, and they were heading home. He also left an extra tip for whoever had to clean up after them. Kitty, satisfied, followed him slowly out of the hotel. As soon as they were away from the front desk, he clicked on the device and they became an elderly couple. Kurt spotted Rahne—who knew to look for them in this guise—moments later, and she took Kitty's arm before Kurt explained she could not leave his side or the hologram wouldn't work. So instead, Rahne hauled suitcases.

Kitty _felt_ like an elderly woman, she was so weak. Before they were halfway to the new hotel, Kurt had to hold her up, eventually grabbing her around the waist and carrying her. She kept muttering apologies. Kitty hated being helpless.

In the new hotel, there were two connecting double rooms. He set her on the bed and brought her more water and food. Piotr hovered but didn't interfere, while Kurt related what Hank had told him.

“His best guess is that the drug has something to do with the skin harvesting they did. Possibly making it easier to remove, but causes the blood to stop clotting for several hours without a counteragent being administered. Presumably they had one on hand, but who knows? Fortunately, Hank had other methods that worked.”

“It definitely wasn't an anesthetic,” Kitty said, grimacing.

“I'm sorry, _schatz_,” Kurt said from where he sat at her feet, one hand on her ankle. He turned to the others and told them everything else they'd learned. Kitty needed more time to recover, but in the morning—hopefully—she'd be able to help them take down the warehouse and stop the production of the skin-covered Terminator-esque sentinels.

After more discussion, the team decided to leave Douglock and Kitty in the room while the rest went out to search the city. Douglock had brought Kitty's laptop and one for himself. He would research the Trask Corporation and the false dermatologist she and Kurt had discovered.

Kitty, when she wasn't napping, could do the same. For now, she was already falling asleep again. She hated feeling useless and helpless, hated that she wasn't out searching the city with the others. And she was worried, too. If Trask had new sentinels, the whole team was in danger, not to mention their inhibitor tech—whatever that was—that had prevented her from leaving and even prevented Kurt from teleporting in. But she was so tired.

When Kitty woke up, the others still weren't back. Douglock was still at the computer. He glanced her way when she moved.

“Do you require anything, Kitty?” he asked.

“No. I want to get it myself.”

“Nightcrawler left strict orders you were not to—”

“He's not _here_.”

“Yes, but—”

“He babies me. Let me try.” She sat up, putting too much weight on her injured arm, and wincing, but she did it. The room spun for a minute, while she swung her feet over the side of the bed. She waited for it to stop, and then got up and walked to the bathroom.

Someone had left a stash of food on the table, and she helped herself, suddenly ravenous, and when she was done she felt immeasurably better. She opened her laptop as a clatter came from the hall, and the door opened. The team had returned, and Kitty felt a dizzying rush of relief. Kurt took one look at her, and crossed the room, dropping a grocery bag on the floor by the bed.

“You're still pale. You should lie down,” he said, taking her pulse.

“I'm not lying down anymore,” she said, gently swatting his hand away. “So what happened with you guys?”

Kurt returned to the bag, feeling equally unappreciated and worried. As he pulled out more food and set it on the counter next to the hotel television, Piotr told her what they'd learned.

“We returned to the building and there was a 'closed' sign in the window. A man nearby was watching us. Then he followed us for a while.”

“We walked the entire building, but there aren't any other obvious entrances. Piotr could make one, but it didn't seem wise to do anything drastic until the rest of the team is here.”

“The rest?” Kitty asked.

Kurt stifled his sour feelings as he let one lean hip fall against the counter. “You were sleeping when I called Hank. Logan's coming, bringing a team with him. They'll be here soon, I imagine.”

“For now, we wait,” Piotr said.

“And do a little hacking,” Kitty added with a sly smile.

Douglock had spent the past hours researching Trask Corporation, their public locations, projects, and funding. He learned they had an office in Bonn, as well as offices throughout Europe and the Americas. He had compiled a list of those offices and each one's projects, and Kurt was looking over it while Kitty started hacking into their Germany site.

“What is this?” Kurt asked, indicating to Douglock an item on his list.

“I do not know. This was the name of the project and its location.”

“It lists a project in Munich. Perhaps this is the dermatologist we discovered, _K__ä__tzchen_.”

She clicked over to another portion of the site, and saw the list Douglock had collected. It cited two projects in Munich, not one.

“There are two,” she said. Kurt stood behind her and read the screen, then watched as she hacked fully into the site. She pulled up their project details one at a time. The first was the warehouse behind the false dermatologist.

“Skin acquisition...growth...models...what does all this mean?” By now the whole team surrounded her, reading the project outline.

“It means they're stealing skin and covering sentinels in it,” Kitty said as she leaned back, her head just resting against Kurt's chest. She cradled her injured arm, and he understood she wanted to be useful. He could understand that. He wouldn't want to be stuck in a bed watching the others work, either.

They jumped collectively when a knock sounded at the hotel door. Piotr answered it.

“We need a bigger hotel room,” Kurt quipped as Logan and five others followed him into the room. Happy greetings were passed around, hugs and pats on the back as old and new friends greeted one another. Logan handed Kurt a bag.

“This is from Hank. Said give 'er one now and keep the rest for backup.”

Kurt peered into the bag. There were vials of liquid and a pack of sterile syringes. Kitty sat obediently while he prepared the syringe. She read Hank's note explaining what it was and why he'd sent it. As if on cue, she saw spots of blood leaking through the bandage.

She looked from the blood spots to Kurt's eyes, focused on the same thing. The syringe stung but nothing like what she'd endured at the hands of Trask's people. He pulled out a roll of gauze, also in the bag, and wrapped another thin layer around the existing bandage.

“You'll be a mummy if we keep this up,” he joked, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. He was worried, Kitty thought. That was fine. She was, too.

While he tended the wound on her arm, Piotr relayed the information they had just learned. “We were reading about the skin harvesting project when you arrived.”

“That's so disgusting,” Bobby said with a shudder.

“Ain't the worst thing I've seen, but it ain't pretty, either,” Logan agreed. Kitty went back to the laptop. She finished reading the project outline.

“They're using regular people but they're also growing their own skin. It's slow, so they wanted to go faster. And it actually _is_ modeled after the Terminator movies.” She almost laughed. “The goal is to make sentinels that pass for human, that can roam around and sneak up on mutants.”

“We'd be like sittin' ducks,” Logan said. “'Less we got a way to detect 'em.”

“We have to take them all out,” Betsy said, taking a seat on Rahne's bed.

Rahne had been silent since their return from scouting, her eyes following the movements of everyone else. “Does anyone else want to know why Kitty's arm hasn't stopped bleeding?”

Every person in the room looked from Rahne to Kitty. She lifted her arm, but the bandage was still white. “It's okay now, Rahne. Hank sent the right medicine. See?” She held her arm up for Rahne, and the rest of them, to see.

“But how long did it take?” Rahne asked.

“A long time.”

Kurt fidgeted with the back of a chair. “_Ja_, it was a long time. Hank sent some vials in case we need more. Whatever they injected seems to prevent the blood from clotting for at least several hours.”

“The building has some kind of inhibitor tech in it. If you can get in, you can't get out easily,” Kitty said.

Firestar, a newer teammate, asked, “What's in the building?”

“A lot of equipment. Tanks with people in them. Computers, machines as tall as the ceiling. Private offices, the best I can tell. It's huge. They might be making the sentinels there, too. I don't know,” Kitty said. “But they're definitely taking skin there, and maybe growing it.”

“What else do they have?” Logan asked.

“Tasers,” Kitty said.

“Is that what happened?” Kurt said quietly. She nodded, but she had opened the second project outline and was reading. She knew he was still looking her way, and as the others talked, she waved him over.

“Look,” she whispered with a frown. He leaned over her shoulder, and so close she could see the motion of his eyes as he read.

He began to read, and she felt him tense up when he reached the part about Winzeldorf. The land had been acquired by the Trask Corporation. It wasn't going to be an adventure park. That was a front for the sentinel manufacturing plant.

“I don't think they're making them here in Munich. That means we still have a chance to stop them,” Kitty said.

“You wanna share with the rest of us, Half-Pint?”

Kitty told them what she'd found. “The whole reason Kurt and I came to Germany was for _this_. Someone—the Trask Corporation we know now—bought up a bunch of land outside of Winzeldorf. That's Kurt's hometown,” she added for Firestar's benefit. “It was supposedly going to be an Adventure Park or something, but this says they're going to use the land to build the sentinel plant. They haven't started making them in assembly lines yet. They're still figuring out how to graft the skin to the metal bodies. Which means we can stop them.”

Kitty shut the laptop and folded her arms on the table to rest her head. The bandage prevented her, so she propped her chin in her hand instead. She was getting tired again. Kurt leaned over and asked if she wanted to lie down again. He would send them all into the other room if she wanted.

“No, I want to hear what's going on at least.”

Some of the team had taken seats on the beds, some stood against the wall, and Kitty and Douglock had the chairs at the table. Kurt took some of the snacks he'd bought over to Kitty, then stacked the pillows at the headboard. “You'll be no good to us tomorrow if you don't rest today,” he said, and she knew he was right. She gave in, and reluctantly admitted it felt good to lie down again. Kurt sat beside her near the edge.

Kitty struggled to keep her eyes open. She wanted to be part of the discussion, but her body was uncooperative. It was dark and quiet when she woke, the middle of the night. Someone had taken off her socks and tucked her under the covers. She wanted to use the bathroom, so she sat up slowly, trying not to wake Rahne, who was sound asleep beside her. In the other bed, Betsy and Angelica were also sleeping.

She didn't notice until she threw back the covers and started to get up that Kurt was asleep at the little table. His head rested on his arms and his tail hung limp on the floor. She was careful to step over it. She wished he had gone to bed. He couldn't be resting very well as he was. On her way back to bed, he growled softly and shifted, picking his head up. His eyes blinked open as she passed him. She hugged his back, cheek pressing into the hard bone of his shoulder blade. “Go to bed, Kurt. I'm fine.”

He shook his head and Kitty sighed. Stubborn man. If only Rahne had not been there, Kitty thought, and immediately felt guilty.


	6. Recuperation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team heads to the warehouse to do some damage to Trask's building. Will they make it out alive? EGADS!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will they live? Will they die? Is Arnold Schwarzenegger in this story? (No. He isn't.)

In the morning she felt almost like herself again. Kurt was gone from the table, always an early riser, and she wondered if he spent the entire night there. He probably had. She heard voices from the guys' room and after all the women were dressed, they opened the adjoining door. Bobby was complaining about sleeping on the floor all night.

“You could have shared with Piotr,” Betsy said.

“Are you kidding? He takes up a bed and a half!” Bobby said.

“What about Logan?” They all looked at Angelica and laughed.

“Yeah, right. _Nobody_ wants to share _his_ bed. Get stabbed...” Bobby said.

“At least you weren't dumb enough to sleep in a chair,” Logan said.

Kurt replied, “It wasn't dumb. I slept fine.” He saw her in the doorway. “_Guten_ _Morgen_, _K__ä__tzchen_.”

“It wasn't necessary,” she said. “I was fine.”

“We have no idea what the long-term effects of their mystery drug are.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. Why did she act like she did not want his help? “If anything happened, I wanted to be there.”

She couldn't help but smile at his concern. “Thanks,” she said, conscious of the pairs of eyes that were watching with amusement. “Really, I appreciate it. But I'm all right now. What's the plan for today?”

Logan joined them at the doorway. “Go into that warehouse and tear some shit up.”

“Oh, the usual then?” Kitty said.

  
  


Logan and Piotr would open a door into the warehouse directly. Without knowing if there were any operating sentinels, the team would have to be on high alert. Betsy would determine if the subjects in the tanks were alive, and if so, their first goal would be to attempt their rescue. If not, the entire machinery would simply be destroyed, along with anything else. Kitty and Douglock would find the main office and take whatever data they could steal before destroying that equipment as well.

“Remember, there is something about this place that inhibits our mutant abilities. We'll have to rely on our natural ones,” Kurt said.

As soon as they arrived at the warehouse, it was clear things were not going to be as easy as they hoped. The building was surrounded by sentinels. They were human sized, without the skin covering the Trask Corporation had hoped to accomplish, but obviously they had guessed what was coming. The team was far enough away to avoid detection so far, but now the question became getting past them, destroying them, and not hurting anyone nearby.

Psyloche began projecting a psychic distress alert, urging people in the vicinity to leave. Once she had the area cleared, they moved forward. Logan wasted no time, rushing in with claws out. He took down two sentinels before the others reacted. Piotr was tight on his heels, ripping the head off a third robot. One by one, the team destroyed the smaller sentinels. They were immune to Kitty's mutant ability, like the warehouse itself, but Wolverine's claws and Piotr's fists worked just fine.

Kitty and Douglock watched, waiting for an opportunity to move in. As soon as the sentinels were disposed of and Logan and Piotr had opened a chunk of the wall, they all rushed inside. Kitty and Douglock, with Rahne as backup, went straight to the area past the chair Kitty had been locked in—she pretended not to see the blood stains on the floor—and into the darkness behind. Amelia Trask had come out of the shadows in this area, and Kitty thought it was a good place to start searching for a main office. There was a door in the corner, but it required a card key. Douglock was able to work around that and open it, so they crept into the brightly lit hallway. It reminded Kitty of halls beneath a hospital leading to a morgue.

  
  


In the main warehouse, Firestar kept guards at bay while Psyloche probed the bodies in the tubes. They were alive, but barely. She didn't know what was keeping them alive, the liquid or the machines, but without someone from Trask sharing what they knew, they'd have to make a guess. Wolverine smashed the tubes, and Nightcrawler, Iceman, Firestar, and Psyloche ran for the people who fell out. They carried them out to the street, where Psyloche called for medical help.

Back inside, more sentinels appeared from the back, but these were not the human prototypes they'd so easily defeated outside. These looked like Sidri aliens. They were fast, vicious, and they discovered that the liquid they shot from their antennae was acid.

Kurt joined the fight, drawing sentinel fire, ripping bits off when he could, and worrying about Kitty. It was always there, the fear she'd be hurt, but after what had happened here already, he hated that he could not be with her while she, Douglock, and Rahne went for the data. It was _fear_, plain and simple, that she would be hurt, and he would lose her. Even the best X-Men get hurt, injured, even die sometimes. He tried not to think about that.

  
  


Kitty and her companions opened every door along the hall, inspected each room, and moved on. Most were storage rooms for paperwork or medical equipment awaiting its horrid purpose. Some were storage rooms for mechanical parts, spare software and hardware, or uniforms and lab attire. Kitty lamented ever finding the main room until Douglock _did_.

“Here are the computers,” he said and marched in. He hooked himself up to the first one he came to and began downloading its contents into himself. Kitty went to the next computer and began downloading its contents onto a portable hard drive while Rahne watched the door for them. They weren't about to let it shut and trap them inside. While the first computer spooled, Kitty powered up the one next to it, mentally counting the computers and calculating the time it would take to pull data from all of them, then smash them. There were at least four more in this room alone, and there could be more elsewhere. She hoped they didn't contain a lot of duplicate data.

“I'm going to start ripping the hard drives out of these computers,” she thought aloud. It meant more to carry, but if Douglock and Rahne both helped, it wouldn't be too bad. She could probably fit two or three in the bag she'd brought her own in.

She was under a table tearing apart a computer tower when Rahne howled and attacked someone. Kitty shot to her feet, yanking the hard drive out, and faced the fake doctor and nurse from before, as well as Amelia Trask and about a thousand guards.

“Oh shit.”

The guards poured into the room, limited by the confining space, and Rahne went after them. Trask and the two fake medical personnel ran, the cowards. Kitty joined the fight, but Douglock simply finished downloading from the computer he was at, stood, and electrocuted the first guard that touched him. Kitty noticed.

“Shove them all together!” Kitty yelled, as she began pushing at the guards.

They had tasers, and she felt a jolting shock that sent her to her knees. Another immediately after, and then the guards fell back. Douglock slowly crumpled to the floor.

Rahne leaped to his side. “Dougie! Douglock, are you okay?”

Kitty crawled over. Douglock's eyes were still blinking but he wasn't moving or speaking. “Reboot, Douglock,” she said, worry edging her tone. She cast around for an undamaged computer, and finding one, she and Rahne hauled him across the floor to it. “Hurry,” she said, keeping one eye on the guards.

They connected Douglock to the computer and Kitty started typing coded instructions to Douglock's brain. At last she got him working again, but at the expense of most of their window of opportunity to escape. The guards began to stir.

“We have to go now,” she said. She knew Douglock wouldn't have a second shock like that left in him. He rose to his feet slowly, looked from Rahne to Kitty to the guards, and smiled.

“I was successful,” he said.

“You were, but hurry up. We hafta go,” Rahne said pulling at his arm.

Back in the hallway, they turned towards the main warehouse area. As they drew closer, the muffled sounds of battle became louder and clearer. Once again, Douglock worked the locked door open, and they stumbled out into a fight scene. Sidri Sentinels were climbing the walls, acid leaking from their antennae. The floor was coated in it, steaming in places, making divots and rough patches where it ate away at the concrete. Stepping in it would be a bad idea.

Kitty handed the hard drives to Douglock. “Hold these. I'm going to find something to wash this acid away. We're getting killed out there.” Rahne and Douglock, from their small patch of safe flooring could see that each blow landed one of their teammates in a puddle of acid. Logan healed each time, but even he wasn't invincible. Piotr, too, could take a lot, but was beginning to falter. Iceman and Firestar were airborne, and doing best of all. Betsy and Kurt fared worst of all, with no real protection. Bobby iced a path to Betsy and lifted her onto his ice slide. Kurt was teleporting around to safe areas of the warehouse, swinging at them with a length of pipe. The sentinels were going down, but slowly.

Kitty kept to the edges of the warehouse until she was behind some of the towering machinery. The liquid in those tubes had to come from somewhere, and chances were good they had a large store of it somewhere. She just hoped she could find it.

  
  


Kurt was beginning to tire. He had a seemingly endless amount of energy most of the time, but he'd used it up with so many teleports in such a short amount of time. Avoiding the jets of acid, and then the puddles and spots of it around the room kept him moving, either leaping or teleporting. He couldn't get purchase on the sentinels any longer. They were all covered in acid. He'd found a metal pole and was using it to bash them as he passed by, or to jab it into the cracks between their shell and their head.

He noticed when the three emerged from the hallway, a bag of something in their hands. He saw Kitty hand it off to Douglock and go running, but where to, he didn't know. He couldn't speculate much while he was being constantly attacked.

The door burst open behind Rahne and Douglock, knocking them down. As Rahne turned to attack, she was tasered and fell to her back unconscious. Douglock suffered the same. The guard was going for the bag of hard drives. Kurt teleported over and grabbed it, kicking the closest guard as he did. There wasn't as much acid on the ground here, only small spots of it here and there from overspray. But the guards had tasers and they were set higher than just 'stun'. One caught him in the ribs, and sent him flying. He skidded through a pool of acid, which ate through his uniform at his lower back, arms, and hip. He gasped in pain, almost blacking out before managing to teleport to the ceiling to catch his breath.

As he fought through the pain, resisting the urge to wipe the acid away, he heard something that sounded like a huge fish tank bursting open. A shallow wave of water rolled down through the towers of machinery, hitting the wall Kurt was clinging to and rolling back. Kurt leaped down into the inch-deep water and propped Rahne and Douglock against the wall. The guards joined the fight, tasers flashing as the sentinels ceased spraying acid.

It was their chance. With the guards in the mix, and the sentinels no longer shooting acid, they could possibly beat them. It looked like they would, too, as Kitty ran back towards the fight. She spotted her unconscious friends and as she started dragging Rahne towards the exit Piotr had made them earlier—which meant getting past the entire group of sentinels and guards—she realized the bag of hard drives was gone. Wildly she looked around, terrified it had been swept away or taken by the guards.

“_K__ä__tzchen_! I have it,” Kurt shouted from beside one of the machinery columns, and tossed the bag to her. She caught it at the same time a guard rammed his taser into the side of Kurt's leg, holding it there until he fell to the ground. He didn't get up. The tide was turning though, and the guards were now outnumbered. Kitty wanted to get Kurt, but he was in the center of the fight, and she had Rahne in her arms already. So she doggedly continued pulling the younger woman past the sentinels and guards, until she made it to the ripped open doorway. Once Rahne was outside, she laid her on the sidewalk on the far side from the building, in the shade of its huge roofline. She went back for Douglock, who wasn't surrounded by sidri sentinels she couldn't phase through. He was much heavier than Rahne, and it took her longer to drag him out. Logan finished off the last sentinel, tearing through its underbelly with his claws. The last guard dropped when Kitty was beside Piotr.

“I will take him,” Piotr said, and Kitty let go of the techno-organic Douglock. Piotr carried him outside. Kitty ran to Kurt, also unconscious. He was breathing, and his heart was beating, though, and she allowed herself a moment to give thanks for small favors. She could see the places where the acid had eaten through his uniform to his skin, the fuzzy coating burned away in several places. There was also a welt where the taser had dug into him. He was on his back in the slowly draining water, and she hoped it had done enough to rinse the acid away.

Piotr appeared behind her, lifted Kurt, and took him outside. Bobby helped Betsy outside. Her shoes had been worn clean through and her feet were burned. She had burns on her legs and some on her arms, but once they got home, Hank would take care of those with little trouble.

The large machinery that once held the tubes of people was damaged, but not yet destroyed. Piotr and Logan finished it off while Firestar torched the columns of machinery that stretched the length of the warehouse. Outside, Bobby and Kitty tended their injured friends. Rahne was awake, holding her head and groaning. Douglock had rebooted and was coming online again. And when Kitty touched Kurt's neck to check again for a pulse, he opened his eyes and groaned.

For a minute, Kitty couldn't think straight. She was kneeling on the sidewalk next to him, her fingers on the side of his throat and her eyes welling up with tears. Why she should be crying when he was all right, she didn't know, but she was.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, dropping her forehead to his. “You're okay.”

With his usual jocularity, he said, “I've been through worse.” He sat up, grimacing, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. In spite of the pain, he endured her embrace, assuring her quietly that he was all right.

“I should be comforting you,” she mumbled when she sat back again.

“I will take you up on it later, when the adrenaline wears off.” She took his fingers in her hands and held them while they waited for the rest of the team to finish and join them.

Logan, Piotr, and Angelica emerged from the nearly demolished building a few minutes later with smiles on their faces.

“It'll take them a long time to rebuild that, and probably all the money they were gonna use to build that fake place out in Winzeldorf,” Logan said, grinning and lighting a cigar. Kitty wondered where he kept the things when he was in costume.

The group trudged back to the hotel, helping the worst of the wounded along. Piotr carried Betsy in spite of the injury to one of his feet. Kurt had a pronounced limp and Douglock was stiff-legged from the water in his system he had yet to work out. Aside from her own taser injury, Kitty was relatively unscathed, as were Bobby and Angelica. Rahne's head was pounding, but she was otherwise fine, too. It felt like a small miracle that they had lived through it.

  
  


Back at the hotel, Logan announced he was taking his team home immediately. “You need Moira, and Betsy needs Hank asap. See you 'round Elf.” He clapped his good friend on the back, earning a slight wince.

“Kitty, you take care and don't go bustin' into no more dermatologists in strange countries.”

“I won't, Logan. Thanks for coming.”

Good-byes were said and thanks exchanged, and within minutes, only the five Excalibur members remained. They had started with five, and were five again. Kitty wondered if it was the number the team was always meant to be.

“What is our plan now?” Piotr asked.

“We'll get cleaned up, I suppose, and head back to Muir,” Kurt said, as he pulled his damaged gloves off and dropped them into the trash. He glanced at Kitty. “Too bad vacation got cut short.”

“That's okay. At least we lived through it.” Inside she was disappointed, but they both needed some time to recover, and Moira would be worried.

The three guys went into the adjoining room to change and clean up, leaving Kitty and Rahne to do the same in their room. As Kitty pulled off her uniform, Rahne gasped at the huge bruise on her back.

“My goodness, is that from today?” Rahne said. She held her hand out to it, and the bruise was almost as large as her handspan.

“Yeah, that's where the guy hit me with the taser.” Kitty glanced at the wound on her arm, still bandaged, and felt a tremor of worry at the size of the bruise. It was close to where they'd tasered her the previous day, but still... She quickly pulled on a clean shirt and shorts and packed up her things.

A heavy knock on the adjoining door was Piotr's. Kurt raised a brow when he saw Kitty's worried face, but she shook her head just enough for him to see, and he said nothing. While Piotr checked the group out of the hotel, she pulled Kurt aside.

She whispered, “Rahne's already freaked out. But look.” She lifted the hem of her shirt so he could see the bruise. “That's from the taser.”

Kurt looked worried, too. “Could be some internal bleeding,” he said quietly. “I have several bruises as well, but it's difficult to tell how large they are.”

“How are the burns? That's what I'm worried most about,” Kitty said.

“They hurt,” he said.

“You washed them?”

“Of course.”

Kurt feared Kitty might still be suffering the effects of the drug Trask's 'doctor' had injected into her. If that was the case, Moira and Hank would need to research it and find a better counteracting agent. For now, he focused on that, and did his best to ignore the sharp pains in his leg and back.

The _Midnight Runner_ waited where Piotr had left it, and once on board they radioed Moira to let her know everyone was alive and heading home. Kitty could hear the relief in her voice. They could discuss injuries once they were there. Moira had a tendency to worry herself to pieces, and it was best to let her deal with the injuries on the spot.

This was certainly not the end of their vacation she had imagined. She had fantasized about Kurt kissing her in some romantic German countryside inn. Or dancing under the stars, or gazing into her eyes over a candlelight dinner. She never _expected_ it, of course, but to come home battered and bruised after a huge fight wasn't really the romantic ending she had envisioned. Not even close.

Piotr was in the pilot's seat, Kurt beside him. They were talking a little. Rahne had her eyes closed and Douglock was doing self-repairs on his damaged systems. Kitty leaned her head against the window. Most of the vacation had been fun, at least. Kitty daydreamed about other vacations they might go on, now that they'd set a precedent. Maybe Greece. Or Spain. Rome, or Venice. No, the Sidri had almost killed him there. She'd been with SHIELD at the time and missed out on that. But Rome could be fun. Like in the movie _Roman Holiday_. She had watched that one night with Kurt back when they were still in the X-Men. It wasn't his usual swashbuckling adventure movie, but Kurt liked an old black and white movie even if it wasn't a high-seas adventure. Kitty just liked Audrey Hepburn.

Back home, they left their luggage and went straight to the infirmary. Rahne was given aspirin and went to bed. Douglock went to the house with her, intending to plug himself into a computer there and finish restoring his damaged circuitry.

Kurt's injuries were severe enough that Kitty had to wait. She sat beside him on one of the folding hospital beds while Moira examined him.

“Why didn't you rinse this immediately?” she said.

“I did!”

“Off to the shower with you!” Moira followed, scolding him the whole way. “And you with your medical training. Medical training my arse. You've left half of it on you, I can see it.” Kitty heard them in the med-shower, where Moira was rinsing the burn areas of any possible remaining acid. The clothes he'd put on earlier flew out the door along with Moira's continued chiding. Kitty hopped off the bed as the two returned, Kurt with a towel around his middle and a look in his eyes that almost made her laugh.

“Want me to grab you some clean clothes?” she said, trying not to laugh at his murderous expression.

“_Ja, bitte_,” he replied.

“An' where do you think you're going missy? I'm not done with you,” Moira said, catching Kitty by the shoulder.

“I'm coming right back, Moira,” she said, phasing out of her grip.

Kurt watched her trot out of the infirmary. She left Moira scowling, but there was nothing the doctor could do about it. Moira was used to it. She'd been his and Kitty's doctor for years now, ever since the Marauders had sent them here in dire straits. Kitty had been alone until he woke from the coma Riptide had put him in, and even then, she was on her own a lot while he recovered. She had become his steady companion through all of that, a dependable, strong-willed, beautiful...

He was brought out of his reverie with a start when Moira pulled the towel back and started wiping cold cream all over his backside. He tucked the towel carefully over himself. He wasn't modest, but he doubted Kitty was interested in watching Moira smear burn cream on his parts.

“Relax, Kurt, I'm a doctor. Not like I've never seen a tushy before.”

“_Ja_, but Kitty hasn't seen mine,” he replied, and it was Moira who blushed while Kurt chuckled.

Kitty returned then with his clothes, and he realized she had brought everything—shirt, pants and underwear.

“_Danke_,” he said as she set the pile beside him. Moira finished applying the cream and stood with arms folded waiting to examine Kitty's arm next.

“How bad is it?” Kitty asked as Kurt adjusted the towel so he could sit up.

“Not as bad as it could have been, this fool not washing it off.” Moira gestured to the bed and Kitty climbed back up. “Your turn.”

Kurt sighed. “I _did_ wash it off.” But Moira ignored him.

Moira first scanned Kitty's bruise and determined it was a normal, everyday, _large_ bruise. There was no evidence of internal bleeding, the blood had clotted normally, and in short, she was fine. The taser burn surrounding it would be sore but she wasn't in any danger.

Then she slowly and carefully unpeeled the bandages on Kitty's arm, alert for signs of bleeding. At the last layer, it was stuck, but a little water loosened it. Kitty averted her eyes, but Kurt leaned across to see again how long and deep the wound was. It extended from just below her elbow to just above her wrist, and was roughly half an inch wide the entire length. Kitty could feel the tension in Kurt's arms as he braced across her lap. How he ever managed to contort himself into some of these poses, she couldn't fathom. “Bastards,” he muttered, and Kitty patted his shoulder. The fuzz, so much like velvet it was uncanny, flattened under her palm, until she lifted her hand away. Then she smoothed it down again, forgetting for the moment that it was his body she was touching, that he could feel everything.

He sat up abruptly as Moira twisted Kitty's arm back and forth to view the gash from different angles.

“You're lucky there's no infection,” Moira said. “They took the whole strip...”

Kurt looked at her sharply and Moira closed her mouth. “Well, let's see what we can do about healing this up properly,” she said instead. She applied a generous amount of salve to it. “This could have been much worse as well. Both of you are lucky.”

“We know,” Kitty assured her. Kurt's expression was unreadable. He slid off the metal bed, and before heading to the other room to change, he grabbed Kitty's head and planted a loud kiss on her temple. Moira sprayed a numbing agent and a fresh bandage and neither of them said anything.


	7. Sometimes You Try My Patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News and an argument.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Kurt can be very stubborn.

“We should have ordered pizza before we came back,” Kitty muttered as she and Kurt dragged their luggage down the hall. She could hear the television in the common room, Piotr watching the news or a movie. “Maybe there's a frozen one...”

“Based on Moira's reaction, it's probably best we didn't.”

Kitty paused at her door before going in. “I'm glad you're okay,” she said.

“_Danke_. I'm glad you are as well. It was a bit dicey there for a while.”

“I didn't really thank you. For taking care of me. Thank you,” she finished, feeling stupid and dull-witted.

She could see one fang as his lips curled slightly. “As if I wouldn't.”

“No, I know, I just meant...”

“I know. And you're welcome.”

She shut the door to her room behind her, and Kurt went to his room. He should have been happy. They had enjoyed over half of a vacation—more than the X-Men usually got—defeated the sentinels, and stopped the Trask Corporation from destroying beautiful land in Winzeldorf. The company had been exposed for its twisted use of humans for sentinels. No one had died. Instead he felt let down. “The usual feeling after a vacation,” he mumbled to himself. Where had he heard that? Probably Amanda. When she was a flight attendant, she would have heard many conversations from weary travelers.

When his things were put away and the laundry bag was set by the door for the morning, he absently rubbed his sore leg and was immediately sorry. He winced. He hoped it wouldn't take too long to heal. Pain from a burn was unlike other pain. The way it permeated the entire area, the way it seemed to increase over time, with every movement... He fell onto his stomach on the bed and stared at his bookcase, trying to refocus himself. The taser wound on his leg burned nearly as badly as his back, where the acid had eaten through his suit.

“Come in,” he called to the soft knock at his door. Kitty phased through, and leaned against the footboard of his bed.

“Are you gonna come watch a movie tonight?” she said.

“I don't know. I might not.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “I thought we could watch _Roman Holiday_.”

“Haven't had enough vacation, eh, _K__ä__tzchen_?”

“Maybe. I was thinking about where we should go next.”

He pushed himself upright, rocking back onto his heels. “Next? You are planning another already?” She wanted to take another vacation with him?

“Well yeah. This one was good, until we got involved with Trask. Plus, we didn't get to finish, so I think that means we owe each other another trip.” She came around and crawled up next to him, stretching out on her stomach with her chin on her hands.

“I did have a good time,” he said, laying back again beside her.

“Me too.”

“Rome, hm? Not a tropical paradise?”

“Last time you went to a tropical paradise, you met Son of Krakoa and locked some woman in a cage.” At his expression she said, “Rachel told me.”

“I was not in my right mind. And she _did_ try to kill me.”

Kitty gave him a look of consternation but didn't press the issue. “So if not Rome, then where do _you_ want to go?”

“I could go to Rome. Or Greece. I've always wanted to see Greece.”

Kitty smiled, “I was thinking that, too.”

He was on a roll now. “What about Paris? No, you've been there. Morocco. Oh, or—what?”

“Now who's got vacations on his mind?”

Kurt rolled to one side so he could look at her. “I confess. I had such a good time, I can't wait to take another trip with you. I am bitterly disappointed that this one was cut short.”

“Me too. But now we have something to look forward to. Right?”

“We could finish our vacation here. Pretend we're still in Germany, and watch the movie here.”

Kitty lifted her head. “Won't Piotr feel left out?”

Of course. Her heart was too big. She couldn't bear to hurt anyone, even a rotten ex-boyfriend. “Good point,” Kurt said. “Let's see if he'll watch with us in the living room.”

Piotr was amenable to _Roman Holiday_, and as they took their seats on the couch, and Piotr in his big chair, Kitty discovered a problem. The acid burn on Kurt's back made it uncomfortable for him to sit properly. He wound up with his head on a pillow in her lap and her fingers in his hair.

Kurt decided his injury wasn't so bad after all.

  
  


When Kitty was younger, and had first joined the X-Men, she and Illyana sometimes slept with their bedroom door open. Illyana had a terrible fear of being trapped, and Kitty got used to it. Then with Rachel, there wasn't a door, only sheets they'd draped up for privacy. When she dated Pete, she'd kept the door shut, but now that he was gone, she found sometimes she didn't bother closing it at night. She liked the soft hum of the television if Piotr stayed up, or the familiar sounds of her teammates bustling about as they got ready for bed.

Her door was cracked open and that was probably the only reason she heard him. That and she was having trouble sleeping with the thudding bruise in her back. She woke, unsure of what had wakened her, until she heard it again. A muffled sound of pain or fear. She padded across the hall to Kurt's room, and pressed her ear against the door. Definitely coming from his room. She phased her head through, but it was too dark to see, so she opened the door to let some of the ambient hallway light spill in.

Kitty crouched beside the bed and lightly stroked his arm where it dangled off the side. His eyes flew open and for a span of a heartbeat he looked like he was going to kill her. Then he blinked and said, “What's wrong?”

“I came to ask you that. You were making some awful noises.”

“I woke you?”

“Sort of. I wasn't sleeping that well anyway.”

He sat up with a grimace as sharp pains shot through his back.

“Oh, Kurt, you were lying on your back. No wonder it hurt.”

“_Ja_, I noticed,” he said through gritted teeth. “I'm sorry I woke you. You should go back to bed, _schatz_.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed to get a drink.

“Okay.” She didn't move. She stared at the burn on his leg, and the one on his back, and the reality of them made her shiver. “It could have burned the muscle...the bone...” she said in a faraway voice. “You could have died.”

“You almost did,” he replied. “It was so close, Kitty. I pressed that towel on your arm and the blood just...and you passed out.”

She nodded, unable to speak.

He touched her fingers. “Do you want some company for a little while?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” she said. Kitty made her way around the other side of his bed while he got water, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chin. When he returned, he pulled the covers down all the way and lay down on his stomach. He patted the pillow and she slid down beside him.

“I dreamed about you,” he said.

“Was I a demon ninja?”

“No, you were walking the high wire in the circus with a frilly umbrella.”

Kitty chuckled. “I thought that was _your_ act.”

“_Nein_, I used bunches of flowers and tossed them to the audience after.”

“You did not.”

“I did. I used to save one for Jimaine, too, and she always gave it one of the children in the audience.”

Kitty wasn't sure if that was sweet, or sad, that she would give the flower away like that.

Kurt said, “She didn't care for flowers. She said they were overrated.”

“I wouldn't know, I've never gotten any.”

“Never? Yes, you have, I'm sure of it.”

“I can't remember ever getting flowers.”

“I know for a fact that you have at least received one. It was your first date with Piotr.”

“Oh. Did he give me flowers?” She tried to remember—had she gotten a vase from somewhere? What had she done with them?

“Not flowers, _a_ flower. One. It was a red rose.”

“Why do you remember this and I don't?” Kitty said, frustrated that she couldn't recall the event.

“I gave him the flower to give you.”

“Oh.”

She didn't know what else to say. She did now, vaguely remember Piotr handing her a half crushed flower, but she hadn't kept it. Now she wished she had.

“I'm sorry I don't remember...I mean...I kind of do, but...not really.”

“No need to apologize. You and Piotr never had much opportunity to make memories worth holding on to.”

Had he been anyone else, she would have been hurt, but it was Kurt and he was right. “No, we didn't. Mostly ones I wish I could forget.”

“I have a few of those myself,” he said.

They were quiet for a while before Kitty said, “This is sort of like vacation. Talking in the dark together. That was fun.”

“_Ja_, it was.” He yawned.

“You're tired. Get some sleep,” she said, sitting up. He pushed himself half up on his side, yellow eyes following her. She had hoped he might suggest she stay again, but he said nothing, only watched her. “Unless...unless you don't want me to go yet.”

“I never do,” he said, and she felt tingly in her stomach as she put her head back down. She lay on her good side and curled her hands around his arm so she didn't accidentally grab at an injured place.

He kissed her forehead. “_Gute Nacht, _dear_ Kätzchen_.”

“Good night, my sweet Fuzzy Elf.”

  
  


Kitty woke sprawled halfway across his bed on her stomach. Kurt was curled in a ball at his pillow, still sleeping. She lay quietly, eyes still closed, thinking and dreaming and wondering why it was they continued to do this. She remembered the soft kiss that first night in Winzeldorf, in the tiny broken bed. She acted like it was no big deal but inside, her heart had been flying. Then in Munich, the night he asked her to stay in _his_ bed when she had her own, like here. She had her own room, her own bed, so why was she here in his?

He moved, and she turned her head to see him uncurl, then stretch, almost like a cat. He leaned over to kiss her cheek, greeting her as if nothing at all was out of the ordinary. As if he woke beside her every day. It was an appealing thought.

“Hey,” she said, but he was already out of the bed, stretching more as he walked to the bathroom. Even with injuries, his movements were supple and graceful, and she could not seem to drag her eyes from him. Above the waist of his pants, the burn mark from the acid was raw and ugly. The base of his tail was burned, too, and she noticed he held it carefully against his body when he moved. At last the door shut and she was freed from the spell. “What am I going to do?” she whispered to herself as she rolled out of his bed.

  
  


Kitty went online to research the news out of Germany, curious to see what explanation had been given for the destruction of the warehouse, the false dermatologist, and the closing of the adventure park. What she found was..._nothing_. Not one article, not one report from a news source of any kind. It was like it had never happened. By lunchtime, she was perplexed and suspected Trask Corporation of foul play. Well, _more_ foul play.

“It's like they wiped everything out,” she said. “I know we saw news coverage before. Where is it now?”

Kitty sat across from Kurt and Piotr at the kitchen table while they ate lunch. Rahne was still fixing her sandwich.

“It just disappeared?” Rahne said. Kitty nodded.

“I suggest we do some old-fashioned networking. Where do we have contacts?” Kurt asked.

“Brian and Meggan are still on their honeymoon, or they'd have some.” Kitty tried to think. Who had Pete known? She couldn't think of anyone she felt comfortable contacting. She could only think of one person. “There's Mara.”

Kurt didn't respond immediately, lifting his eyes to hers, which focused on a point in space, only flickering in his direction for a moment. “True,” he said.

“What about Rory Campbell?” Rahne asked. “Where is he now?”

Another pause before Kurt replied. “He _was_ in Japan. I'll try to find his current location. Good idea.” Again he sought Kitty's eyes. Rory's behavior the last time they were in Japan had been questionable at best. Kitty knew Kurt wouldn't want to contact him.

“I think we need to talk to Mara first and find out what's going on in Germany. That's where this started, after all. She can tell us if the company is still there, or if they're gone or what,” Kitty said. “Then we can start looking for them elsewhere.”

“I agree,” Piotr said.

“I'll call Mara,” Kurt said, rising stiffly.

When he was gone, Rahne said, “What was that about?”

“What?” Kitty said, feeling a blush creeping up her face.

“Who is this _Mara_?” Piotr said.

“She runs the Nightcrawler museum in Winzeldorf,” Kitty said. “They, uh, they know each other from last time he was there.”

Twenty minutes later, Kurt finally returned. Only Kitty was still waiting. Piotr had gone to the gym and Rahne was in the lab helping Moira. Kurt sat down carefully, clearly favoring his back.

Kitty had her hands wrapped around a cup of tea. “Do you want a cup?”

“No thank you. Is there coffee?”

“No, but I'll start it. What did Mara say?”

She didn't miss the small sigh before he began. “She said the construction signs are gone from the field. Word in town is the sale 'fell through'. There are mixed feelings.”

“I understand. They thought they were going to get an influx of revenue and now it's gone.”

“_Ja_, but the land is spared, at least for now. Now that they've tried to sell it once, it's likely they will again.”

“Anything else?” Kitty wondered what he'd been discussing with her for twenty minutes. This couldn't have taken twenty minutes to relate.

“She thanked me again for coming to the museum. She still wants to visit Muir Island.”

“Why? There's nothing _here_,” Kitty couldn't quite keep the annoyance out of her tone.

“I told her as much.”

The coffee finished and she poured him a cup. He sipped it gratefully, an excuse to avoid her accusatory gaze and the discussion he didn't want to have.

“She wants to see _you_,” Kitty said. It wasn't a question.

He nodded. “I believe that is the case.”

“So when is she coming?”

“I put her off for now.”

“Why?” She wanted to hear it from him. The truth. She needed to know where she stood with him. And where Mara stood.

“Kitty...I _only_ _kissed_ her. It was stupid. A spur of the moment mistake after I fought a demon and faced Mephisto and got shot and...” He ran a hand through his hair.

“I meant why did you tell her not to come? You don't have to explain what happened between the two of you.”

He swirled his coffee, took a long drink and set it down. “Yes I do.”

“It's your life. Date whoever you want.”

“I don't want to date her. I don't like her that way. She's barely a friend. I only kissed her.”

Kitty reached across the table for his hand. “Hey, you have to understand something. There's no 'only' when you kiss someone. To her...it probably meant you liked her or at the very least were attracted to her.”

“I know,” he muttered, trying to stand up. Kitty held fast to his hand.

“You _have_ to stop kissing people when it doesn't mean anything to you.”

He froze. Her eyes met his, her fingers were tight around his. She was waiting for him to say something. Did it count, that barely-a-kiss in Winzeldorf? He swallowed. “Yes.” He pulled his hand free and left.

Kitty let him go, and her heart with him.

  
  


Kurt went to the gym, doing easy lifting and stretching routines alongside a brooding Piotr. Their moods mirrored each other, and Kurt was silent. '_Yes_' he'd said. He meant yes, the kiss in Winzeldorf counted. He'd meant it more than any other kiss, but she didn't know it. To her, his _yes_ was agreement that he shouldn't kiss random women. And he meant that, too. He knew that, he knew she was right, but he hated for her to scold him. He was never ashamed of himself unless Kitty corrected him. Now he felt the shame of knowing she was right, and knowing she would never think it meant anything if he kissed her. Like in Winzeldorf. She was obviously ignoring it, and this was why.

Piotr startled him when he spoke. “What did you learn from your contact in Germany?”

He related again what Mara had told him. “I suppose it means we'll have to do some more digging. Trask didn't disappear. They went somewhere. We should find Douglock's list again. It will narrow down the places we have to search.”

“_Da_.”

  
  


Kitty sat on the hill outside the research center, where she'd taken Kurt before their trip to Germany. She'd stood here and told him he had a family here, and a home, and she meant it. She wouldn't let anything change that, but she had to stop opening herself up to pain. He didn't love her and she had to stop hoping. But it was so confusing when he kissed her and held her and asked her to sleep in his bed at night. She'd have to start saying no. Her heart couldn't take it.

Piotr trudged up the hill and stopped near the top. He leaned down, one elbow on his knee. “What are you doing, Katya?”

“Just thinking. Do you need me for something?”

“Not particularly. Kurt has an idea about finding more information. I thought to tell you.”

“Oh. Sure. What is it?”

“Do you remember the list of office locations we found on their website?”

“Of course.”

He held his arms out as if the conclusion was obvious.

“Okay. Sounds good.”

“He intends to begin today.”

Kitty laughed. “Have you seen him move? He looks like an old man.”

“He will not listen to me.”

Kitty got to her feet with a deep breath for patience. Piotr wanted _her_ to talk sense to him. Fine. She could do that.

She trotted down the hill, ignoring the ache each bouncing step caused in her side. She pushed the back door open and descended on him where he stood in the hallway with the list.

“We're not going anywhere right now,” she said without preamble.

He continued reading the list. “We have to find them.”

“Kurt, you're hurt, I'm hurt, we're all dealing with injuries on some level. We can't fight if we get into trouble. And we are _not_ going.”

“You are not the leader of this team.” He wasn't angry at her, not really. He was angry at himself for being a fool, for not having the sense to understand why Mara was so enamored with him. And now Kitty, never afraid to speak her mind, was on the receiving end of his irritation.

She bristled. “No, I'm not. But if the leader of this team is being an _idiot_, then I'm going to call him on it.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw as he faced her. He knew when she set her mind to something she wouldn't back down. But he knew, too, if they didn't act fast, they'd lose their window of opportunity. Trask also knew they were injured. She wouldn't expect them to come after her so soon.

He started explaining, but she was insistent. “You'll get _killed_.”

“Not on reconnaissance.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. When he still said nothing, she held out her arm. “This was reconnaissance.”

“You should not have gone to the back. You should have left.”

Kitty fumed. “And _you_ shouldn't have waited so long to back me up. Where the hell were you, anyway?”

“I—”

“Exactly. We're not doing this.” She turned on her heel and marched back out to the hill. No one followed her.

  
  



	8. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arguments are resolved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I didn't mess up his injury locations. I made some changes when I edited this earlier and hopefully I got them all. If you spot a mistake, sorry!

Kurt acted as if she hadn't said a word. “Pack all the surveillance gear into the _Runner_. I want to know where Trask has run off to.”

Piotr hesitated, but he wasn't going to be the one who stood up to Kurt when he was in a mood. Rahne was still in the house and hadn't heard Kitty's outburst, so when he called up to her, she went along without complaint.

Kurt was going to leave her behind. He was going to fly off and let her sit on her hill and watch them, but he couldn't do it. He owed her at least the courtesy of telling her. Walking up the hill hurt more than he wanted to admit, and drove home how right she was.

Kitty was lying on her back looking at the low gray clouds. She looked away when he approached.

“I'm sorry I snapped at you,” Kurt said. “I'm not angry with you.” He started to crouch, but it was painful, so he remained standing. “I'm...I'm embarrassed and I took it out on you, and that wasn't fair.”

“Okay.”

“We're still going to go.”

She finally looked at him.

“You'll _die_.”

“Not if you are with me.”

“Even if I'm with you. They'll kill us. None of us is in any shape to fight, and you know it. Piotr doesn't want to go, either, he's just not brave enough to tell you. He asked me to talk to you.”

Interesting. “I want to fly over the office locations and do distance surveillance from the _Runner_. No fighting, no teams going in, none of that. I'm not completely stupid. Only mostly stupid.”

“You're not that either, but sometimes you don't think about the consequences. What if they shoot us down? Then we _do_ have to fight, and then what?”

“Doesn't the _Runner_ have cloaking?”

“Yes, but what if they have upgraded tech?”

“It's not like you to be so against a mission. What's going on?” He forced himself to sit, biting through the pain and hoping she couldn't tell.

Her eyes felt watery and she waited for it to stop. “_You'll die_.”

“You said that. But I don't think that's what it is.”

“Of _course_ it is. You almost got creamed by those sentinels in Germany. If you die, then what happens to the team? To me?”

Kurt knew death was a risk they faced every day as X-Men or members of Excalibur. He knew she had come to terms with it. This was something else, he was sure of it. She just wouldn't say what. He could continue to press her, or accept this as her reasoning. After a moment's debate, he settled on letting it go for now.

“We'd best not find out, _hm_? Please come with us. I'm not ordering you, I'm asking.”

She sat up with a groan, dropping her head into her hands. “God you are persistent as hell, you know that?”

“I do. It's one of my more charming qualities.” He gave a sort of bow, from the neck up only.

“Ha!”

She got up, and held out her hand to him. He hadn't fooled her. He never did. He kept hold of her hand once he was on his feet. “I mean to be as careful as possible.” He gestured to himself as if to say he understood her point, that he wasn't in good health.

“You owe me big time,” Kitty grumbled as they walked down the hill. His hand tightened in hers as he braced himself on the way down. He stopped her at the bottom of the hill, before they went inside.

“There's something else. Something I need to tell you.”

Kitty waited, noting the way he wrapped his tail around his leg and looked at the ground. He started to speak several times, opening and then closing his mouth to start again.

Finally Kitty put her hand on his arm. “Whatever it is, you're my best friend. I love you and I'll forgive you, even if you make me mad. Okay?”

“I love you, too, _K__ä__tzchen_,” he said, and hugged her. “Thank you for being my friend.”

“Was that it?”

“Basically.”

“Thanks for being mine, too.”

  
  


Douglock, at Kurt's request, had plotted out the most efficient route to the listed locations of Trask Corporation offices. The plan was to remotely surveil each one and try to determine if any of them might be continuing the work from the now defunct Munich office. The first three offices were practically deserted—tiny little buildings with no obvious signs of building spaces, warehouses, or other telltale signs of construction. The fourth was promising at first, with a warehouse in back, but it turned out to be the site of their paperwork storage and recycling facility.

“Imagine that, a huge company that recycles, and what do they make? Machines to kill mutants, that's all,” Kitty said as Douglock programmed the next destination.

Before they were even overhead, they knew they'd found something. The building was massive, all black, and it was deflecting their radar. Not only that, but it wasn't on the list from their website.

“Where did you find this information?” Kurt asked Douglock as he stared down at the sprawling complex tucked in the mountains of Nepal. A casual observer wouldn't even see it, but Douglock wasn't using traditional radar. He and Kitty, along with Brian before he left, had rigged the Runner with high-definition scopes that picked it out easily. Kurt stared at the screen, then out the window. “We're definitely in stealth mode right now?”

“Unless they have the same tech we do,” Kitty said.

“All right. Let's blow past. This place looks promising, but we don't need to get shot down.”

There were only two more places listed, and they passed over them to be sure, but none of the others compared to the complex in Nepal.

“There's got to be something going on there,” Kurt said, almost to himself. He paced in the back of the ship, but was having some trouble doing so, with the pain in his back. The acid burns were healing and leaving behind scar tissue that was less elastic. Moira had told him when it was all healed up, she had a fix for that, but she had to wait for it to heal up completely. Meanwhile, it was already bothering him.

Kitty could hear him behind her as he moved back and forth, his booted feet slapping on the metal floor in an almost-familiar pattern, broken only by the limping. He stopped behind her, and she tipped her head up to see him. He was looking down at her, leaning on the headrest of her seat. “What do you think about it?” he asked.

“I think it's fishy.”

The entire excursion took them well into the early morning hours, and when they returned, it was to drop into their own beds, and fall immediately to sleep. Kitty rose around noon and yawned her way to the kitchen for breakfast. Kurt was there already. Piotr's door was still shut, and Rahne had yet to come down from Moira's house, where she lived.

“Hey,” Kitty said, still tired and a little groggy. “You're up early.”

“It's noon.”

“It feels like it's early.”

She slumped down at the kitchen table and yawned again. Kurt rose to start the water boiling for tea.

“You look worse,” she said, watching him wince and ease into the seat again.

“I feel worse,” he said. “I'm going to see Moira when I finish eating.”

“What's wrong?” She felt awake now.

“I can hardly move without pain.”

“Yeah, that doesn't sound good.” She chewed her lip, thinking about Moira scolding him for not rinsing the acid off better. She couldn't imagine Kurt accepting a life where he couldn't tumble and flip and leap.

“I'm a little worried,” he said, surprising her with his candor.

“Yeah,” she said, “Me too.”

The water boiled, and Kitty got up to pour the tea and make some oatmeal. “How's your leg?” she asked.

“The taser injury is healing fine. I have a bit less fuzz, but otherwise nothing permanent.”

“I have a scar forming, too.”

She sat down with her breakfast. “I didn't know.”

“What?”

“When I went back. I didn't know I couldn't get out.”

“I know, _K__ä__tzchen_. I should not have said that to you. It was unfair.”

“But it was something I had already been thinking. It wasn't unfair, it was just voicing my own thoughts.”

“It _was_ unfair. I would have done the same thing. Any of us would. It was reconnaissance. If you'd run at the start, they would have known we were watching them, and they might have left before we could deal with them. You did the right thing.”

“Well since we're clearing the air, I know you came for me as fast as you could.”

“I should have come sooner.”

“You tried, Kurt. You couldn't get in. I know that.”

He looked about to argue and Kitty stopped him. “Can we let it go now?”

After a moment's hesitation, he said, “Of course.” There was more he'd like to have cleared the air about, he thought. Mara. The kissing of strangers. Kissing _her_ in Winzeldorf. He wanted to open it all up and lay it out for her. His mouth stayed closed.

“What do you think they're doing in that place in Nepal?” she said after a few minutes of eating.

“Something terrible, probably. Ah, there's Moira,” he said, and stood.

“Let me know what happens.”

“Always, _K__ä__tzchen_.”

Kitty finished her breakfast alone, then decided to take some time for herself before beginning the day's work. She planned to research the Nepal building, to see if she could find any evidence of it online or in the soon-to-be-hacked Trask Corporation site. She spent some time organizing her books and movies, cleaning up her closet, and putting away things that had been neglected from their trip to Germany. At the bottom of her suitcase, she found Kurt's book, with the flowers inside. She took them out and examined them. They were flattened, but not really pressed. The book wasn't heavy enough. She pulled a huge volume off her shelf, stuck the flowers in, and piled a few more books on top.

It was over an hour before Kurt returned from the infirmary. He was still limping, but looked slightly better. He knocked on her door frame and stepped inside. She had dressed in a crop top and leggings, and he could see the angry pink circle on her back from the taser. Then he looked closer and there were two, one slightly paler.

“How many times did they taser you?” he said.

“What?” Kitty stood up from shoving books onto her shelf. “Oh, the other one. Yeah, one's from the first day.”

“I didn't realize.”

“You were kind of busy keeping me from bleeding out, as I recall. What did Moira say?”

“She started treating the scars early. It feels much better. She said the muscle pain is from favoring the leg and I should stretch and massage it daily.”

“How do you feel? I mean, can you tell a difference?”

“Yes, definitely. Are you very busy?”

“No. I was just cleaning up before I started work.”

He shifted on his feet a little. “Would you take a walk with me around the building?”

“Sure. I'll grab a coat.”

“It's cold today. Put a sweater on too.”

  
  


He was right. It _was_ cold, and she was glad she kept her hat and gloves in her coat. Even so, it was nice to get out and walk in the fresh air. They walked slowly, stopping now and then so he could rest and stretch a little. Kitty was reminded of his recovery years ago, from the coma. He'd been unconscious for a couple of months, and he was skin and bones when he woke up. Mutant systems bounce back faster than normal humans, but even so, it was a while before he could run around again. She remembered he passed out a lot, and fell a lot. She remembered being scared all the time, and how he would reassure her whenever he noticed.

“I'll be all right, _K__ä__tzchen_,” he said and she almost laughed. He still noticed when she was worried about him.

He was holding her shoulder for balance and stretching his leg behind him. “I know,” she said. “I also know you don't need to hold on to me.”

He dropped his hand and pretended to fall. Kitty poked his ribs and he did fall then, but she caught his hand and hauled him back upright. “See,” he said, “You're wrong. I _do_ need you.”

“I know.”

While Kitty hung up her coat and returned the hat and gloves to the pockets, Kurt leaned against the wall rubbing his back. She watched him a minute before asking, “You look like you're having a hard time.”

“Well,” he said panting a little. “Moira said to massage the muscles after I exercise. So I am.” Kurt was one of the most flexible people Kitty had ever met, and he was still having trouble reaching and exerting pressure where it needed to be.

“I think you need someone else to do that for you.”

“Suggestions, _schatz_?” He raised a cynical brow. “I dare not ask Piotr. And Moira is busy.”

“I bet Douglock would do it for you.” She started laughing before she finished.

“Funny.” He scowled.

“Oh, stop acting so offended. You know I'll do it for you.”

“I admit I was hoping you'd say that.”

“I'm your best friend, aren't I? Of course I'll do it.”

He smiled, but the word “friend” was becoming like poison to his good mood. Did she really need to remind him they were _just_ _friends_? As if he might forget?

“_Danke_.”

Kitty directed him to the couch, and he lay down along it. She started at his hip, and the moment she pressed in, he jerked away.

“Ow!”

Kitty raised her hands. “I'm sorry! I didn't think I pressed so hard, I'm—”

“No no, it's okay. That,” he said, pointing, “is where the worst of the taser burn is. It still hurts.”

“Anywhere else to avoid?” she said, feeling badly for hurting him.

“Here,” he pointed to his knee. “And the burn on my back.”

Kitty started over, slowly and carefully this time, and when she finished, he rolled to his side and stretched.

“Thank you. That felt wonderful. Is there anything I can help _you_ with today? Your research?”

Kitty smiled. “Nah, I'm okay. I like to do that alone so I can focus.”

He nodded as he sat up. He was secretly glad she'd said no. He wanted a shower. As she walked down to the computer lab, he stood up, testing his leg and back. Both were definitely improved, and he could move a little more easily. He was absolutely going to do his exercise, especially if she was willing to do that to him afterwards.


	9. Just When You Think It's Safe to Go to London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trask is out for revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some bad stuff is going to happen. Lots of fighting, but it's not really graphic, at least not to me. No descriptions of wounds or anything. Basically it's shooting at bad robots. However, if this bothers you, proceed with caution.

After a week, Kurt was almost himself again. He and the team flew into London to see Dai Thomas about a series of robberies in which the victim claimed to have seen cats running off with their things. After the meeting, a total bust, when it turned out the victim was looking for attention from his wife, who had grown tired of his whining and stopped listening to him, the five of them were strolling through a section of London they hadn't been in for a while, looking for a place to eat. Rahne spotted a diner she wanted to eat at, so Douglock went in with her. Kitty was hoping for Mexican, and since Piotr wasn't interested, he went back to eat with Rahne and Douglock. Kurt and Kitty went down another side street where there was a bright awning that looked promising.

“We should have used that new restaurant app I heard about,” Kitty said as they walked down the street. The awning wasn't a restaurant either. “That's it, I'm installing it now.” They waited a minute while it downloaded, installed, and opened.

“Oh hey, look, there _is_ one nearby! Which way...” she turned around, looking for the street signs to align herself with the map.

“It's that way,” Kurt said, pointing.

“Show-off,” she muttered. Then she noticed someone come out of a store and look their way. It gave her the creeps. “Kurt, could you get us out of here?”

_Bamf_.

They arrived outside the diner. “What is it?” he demanded, scanning the area around them.

She dragged him into the restaurant and squeezed into the booth beside Rahne. “I think Trask is here,” she said, her voice so low Piotr had to strain to hear from across the table.

“Did you see her?”

“No. I saw...I think...I think it was a sentinel.”

Rahne slid her soda over. “Here, Kitty, have a sip. You look a fright.”

“Thanks.” She sipped the root beer—not her favorite—but was grateful for the sugar. “I could be wrong, but a guy came out of a building and _looked at me_. And he was..._blue_.” She took another sip, still trying to steady her nerves.

She glanced out the window. “Oh shit, there he is! Did he follow us? We need to get out of the diner.” She stood up, and the bluish man sped up his steps. More were behind him. Their faces were all the same, but some were blue, some flesh-colored. “They'll blow the whole place up to get at us.”

The team raced out the back. Kurt teleported to the roof to determine how many they were facing. He counted five, one for each of them. He wondered if it was intentional.

Excalibur rounded the corner of the building and stopped in the street. Kitty and Kurt had faced off with a number of these already, and they had been easy to disable. These had undergone improvements and weren't as easy. As they fought, dodging sentinel beams and trying to keep public damage to a minimum, Kitty thought it was a good thing they didn't shoot acid.

Piot pounded a sentinel's head in, and as wires sparked and the head bobbled and fell, the robot dropped to the ground. Kitty rounded on another, landing a solid kick to its leg and knocking it off balance. Kurt grabbed its head and teleported it off. Douglock wasn't faring well, but Piotr stepped up behind the one attacking him and smashed it, and Kitty dove at another, bowling it over. Once they were on the ground, Piotr smashed their heads as flat as he could.

“Wait!” Kitty yelled as Piotr went to smash the last head. “I want to take one back with us for the tech.”

The group stood around while Kurt dialed Dai Thomas again. Kitty examined the one with the blue tint to its skin. She ran her fingers over it, and withdrew them as if they burned.

“How did she get his...” Kitty mumbled to herself as she thought. They had taken skin from _her_. They hadn't taken Kurt's. How had they replicated his own skin, down to the fuzz, with this pale-blue color that looked like a sickly version of him?

Rahne stared. “It's like they mixed his skin with someone else's.”

“Yeah. But how?”

“Look at that one,” Rahne said, pointing to another sentinel. “Look at the back of its hands.” Long brown hair grew in tufts. “It's kind of like mine, when I'm half-wolf.”

“Which you _were_ when we fought them...” Kitty said, pieces trying to fit together in her head. “But they didn't take skin from you either.”

“No, they only tasered me.”

“They tasered Kurt, too.” Were they somehow stealing skin with the tasers? She thought about the wounds they left. Burns with raw centers, as if the skin was ripped away. “Oh my god.” She spun around, and the others looked at her expectantly.

“_K__ä__tzchen_?” Dai was still talking, but Kurt didn't hear him. He was focused on Kitty's wan face.

“I think they're using those tasers to take skin samples.”

“It would explain that blue one,” Rahne said. “And the hairy one.”

“Dai is on his way,” Kurt said, hanging up. He surveyed the carcasses of the sentinels. “Why have they not sent more?” He made his way around the pile to stand at Kitty's side.

She shook her head. “I don't know.”

“Perhaps this was all they had,” Piotr suggested.

“They are identical,” Douglock said.

Kitty couldn't tell. They were all smashed except the one head in her hand. “They were identical,” Douglock corrected. “Their faces and bodies.”

“If that's the case, we can use that to identify them out in public later. Maybe we can track them, too,” Kitty said, kneeling beside another one to poke through its skull for GPS tech or locator chips. She yanked out chunks of circuitry and dumped it into one of her gloves.

After Dai Thomas and his people arrived, sorted things out, and sent for things to be cleaned up, Excalibur returned to Muir to puzzle over this new development.

Kitty went straight to her work desk and dumped out the parts. Kurt was full of nervous energy, so he worked out for half an hour, letting his mind run in all directions. Then he called Scott and Jean.

“New tech for sentinels? That's not good. What is it?” Scott asked.

“Skin. They have succeeded in covering them in human skin, to fool us, presumably.”

“They really look like people?”

“Mostly. Douglock said their faces are all identical. We couldn't confirm because all but one were a bit smashed,” he said, clearing his throat lightly. “But that is my recollection as well.”

“Shit. Keep us posted. We'll monitor from our end as well,” Scott said before hanging up.

Kurt wandered the halls and when he passed Kitty's workroom, she waved him in. “Come're a sec,” she said, not bothering to look up. When he stepped up beside her, she kept working another few seconds before looking up. “Okay, these things have serious GPS tech. Maybe we can use it to find more of them. The three I took have almost identical signal beacons. I think I can probably create a scanning program for them based on those.”

Kurt took a seat in a chair beside her. “That's fantastic.” Kurt had fiddled with electronics during his time with the X-Men, but he was no professional. He preferred to stick with the Blackbird mechanics and leave tech to Kitty. She made it look easy.

“There's more. See this?” She pointed to a piece of equipment hooked to one of the wires. He leaned a little closer. “They talk to each other with this.” Her cheeks were flushed with enthusiasm for her work, and the hope that she had discovered a disadvantage in the programming.

“Maybe we can use it against them.”

“I thought the same thing. I wish we knew how many there are and where they're coming from. I tried to reverse the GPS to see where it originated, but I couldn't. If I keep at it, maybe.” She chewed her lip, mulling it over in her head. He put his hand on her the back of her chair, so that only his thumb was touching her back.

“But you can follow them? That's good enough, _K__ä__tzchen_. That's _wonderful_—more than we had before.”

“Can you ask Douglock to come in here? I think he can help me with this. If I can just...maybe I can find out where they're being built.”

Kurt looked down at the top of her head, wished he could run his hand through her hair, and said, “Sure, I'll send him right in.”

  
  


Hours later, she was still in the lab with Douglock reverse-engineering the GPS and doing something to the sentinel's head. Kurt stood in the doorway watching her work for a moment before reminding her she hadn't eaten in hours.

“Oh. Right.” She didn't look up. “I'll be there....um...in a sec...”

“I'll wait for you,” he said, knowing she'd never get up if he didn't. She was worse than Moira sometimes. Five minutes later, she was still working. He stepped up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Aren't you hungry?”

She shook her head a little. “I'm so close to getting this...”

He squeezed her shoulders and rubbed his thumbs up and down her neck. Slowly her hands stilled until she wasn't working any more. She took a deep breath and when she let it out, he knew he finally had her attention. “You ready to go eat now?”

“Sure,” she said as his hands stilled. “That was nice, thanks.”

He knew how she got when she was in the middle of a project. She'd work for hours, forget to eat, or not eat enough, or eat nothing but popcorn. She'd be hunched over, squinting because she'd left her glasses somewhere, and not much could distract her. Fortunately, she was a pushover for a good neck massage.

In the kitchen, Piotr had made dinner, and the smell made Kitty realize she was actually starving. The conversation naturally centered around the new sentinels. They didn't know how many there were, where they were being manufactured, or who had ordered their construction. They knew almost nothing about them, in fact, except that they existed. The team had just finished eating when the proximity alarms went off.

  
  


The video feed showed the island being swiftly surrounded by incoming sentinels. Not just the humanoid ones they'd fought on the street, but larger ones, the sidri ones, ones they'd never seen before that looked like flying worms, ones that looked like six legged dogs. All flying. All converging on the island. Too many to count.

“Shit,” Kitty said, and then, “Oh _shit_, the GPS....it was a trick. They tricked us...” she sank back in a chair with her hands over her face. “I led them right to us...”

Kurt ignored her for now. They had to formulate a plan, and fast. “We need evac for Moira,” he said, turning to Douglock. “Get her off the island, and do it now. Carry her onto the _verdammt_ plane if you have to.” Douglock left and the rest of them waited.

“What is your plan, _tovarisch_?”

“I'm working on one.”

“The head,” Kitty said. “The talking—the way they communicate with each other. It's almost done.”

Kurt turned to her then, nodding, and giving her a quick smile. “Get on it—finish it fast. We have less than three minutes before they're here. They'll be past the security system in another minute.” But Kitty was already gone.

_My fault, my fault, my fault_ repeated in her head as she phased through the floor and ran to the lab. She'd been so close, if she hadn't gone to eat..._Stop it_. No time for this. She threw herself into the chair.

Kurt realized that the four of them stood little to no chance of defeating all the sentinels. They could possibly hold the facility for a little while, but the sentinels were too numerous. They would get in, they would find them, and they would almost definitely kill them. His team looked at him with the same thoughts in their head. “Whatever armor you can find, put it on. Any weapons, especially distance ones...we're going to need all of them.”

Kitty flew up through the floor with a sentinel head attached to a keyboard. She plugged it in and the viewscreen changed to scrolling text—messages to and from all the sentinels. “I got their comms but they aren't listening when I tell them to abort.”

“Can we try a different command?” Kurt suggested.

“I'll try...I'll tell them to slow down because there are sophisticated weapons systems in place.”

She typed it out quickly, then swapped the screen to the robots on approach. They didn't change course or back off. She shook her head. They were ignoring this one, probably because it was marked damaged or destroyed. “I'm sorry,” she said, spinning in her chair away from the screen.

“Find some armor and some weapons,” he said, pressing his hand to her cheek. The first shot hit the building and it rumbled around them as they headed to the armory.

“The acid will still eat through it,” Kurt said when the rumbling stopped, “But hopefully it will take longer. Take out the sidri ones first.” Kitty grabbed all their hands and they dropped through the floor to the armory.

Kurt finished buckling Kitty's armor while she helped Rahne with the back of her headpiece. The building rumbled again.

“They're going to destroy the building,” Kitty said, her voice shaking a little from nerves and adrenaline. She checked the back of his armor, and looked at Piotr, who wore none. It didn't fit him in his steel form.

“Unfortunately yes,” Kurt said, “But we'll last longer inside. We stick together for now.” Kurt's comlink beeped. Douglock had gotten off the island with Moira—he could hear her fussing in the background—and none of the sentinels had followed them so far.

“Good work, Douglock. Get her to safety, and try to get anyone you can find over here. The X-Men, Captain Britain, _anyone_.” Not that he thought it would help. They'd all be dead before they could get here. The ground shook as a hundred or more sentinels landed almost as one. They all had lasers and guns, even Rahne, who hated them. Kurt patted her head. “They're not alive, Rahne, so don't hold back.” He didn't like guns, either.

Rahne nodded and hooked a second gun onto her belt. Kitty strapped her backup weapon over her shoulder and followed Piotr and Kurt into the hall. The walls shook again as the sentinels began hammering their way inside. The group crept up the stairs, listening for the sounds of the sentinels. Suddenly Piotr opened fire and the hallway filled with light and sound. Kitty covered her ears instinctively. More sentinels appeared at the top of the stairs, and she found herself firing on them. They were trapped on the stairwell. As soon as one sentinel went down, it was replaced by another. And then one of the acid spitters emerged from the pile of downed sentinel bodies.

“Fall back!” Piotr shouted as acid sprayed the hallway. Kitty phased herself and Rahne as Kurt teleported himself and Piotr out of harm's way. Kitty and Rahne landed under the stairs and peeked out before rounding the corner.

“We have to catch them off-guard and blast them before they can shoot the acid,” Kitty said.

“Where did Kurt and Piotr go?” Rahne whispered.

“I don't know. Stick with me. They'll find us. Kurt said to stay together.” Kitty _hoped_ he and Piotr would find them. If she was going to die, she wanted to be surrounded by her friends. She and Rahne moved silently along the hall, listening to the sounds of sentinels from above. “I guess we should go find some sentinels,” Kitty whispered. Hiding wouldn't stop the invasion.

“Let's take some out before we die,” Rahne said.

“As many as we can,” Kitty agreed as they bounded up the stairs. At the top, they found several sentinels just breaking through the exterior wall. She and Rahne opened fire on them. There was still no sign of Kurt and Piotr. She hoped they weren't already dead. More sentinels poured in through the hole and the two fired on them until the pile of sentinel bodies started to collapse on them. Kitty and Rahne were slowly being forced back down the stairwell. Through the hole, Kitty saw several sidri sentinels approaching rapidly.

“Kill 'em! Fast!” Kitty yelled over the noise of crunching metal and weapons and sentinels' droning, robotic voices. She and Rahne focused on the bug-like sentinels, hoping to stop them before they sprayed them with acid. Halfway down the stairs, Rahne heard metal footsteps from the corridor below them.

“They're coming at us from behind, Kitty.”

“Force our way forward,” she replied.

“I'm running low on ammo,” Rahne said. They pressed forward anyway, climbing over and around the pile of sparking sentinels. They managed to push past them, spinning around to fire at them as they passed behind.

“All right, we need to get back to the armory,” Kitty thought aloud. The armory was two levels below and down a hallway. Rahne said sentinels were on the lower level, so getting down there might be a problem. Kitty grabbed hold of her friend and phased straight down as fast as she dared. When they landed on the armory level, it appeared deserted, for now.

They ran down the corridor. Rahne morphed to half-wolf form so her heightened senses would detect their enemies before they heard them. Hopefully. The armory was deserted too, and they loaded up with new weapons and ammunition. While they were there, Kitty clicked on her comlink and called to Kurt and Piotr. There was no answer from either. They could be in the middle of a fight, or they could be dead, and she had no way of knowing. Back in the hallway, they chose another stairwell, figuring those provided the most cover. The corridor was dark until the stairwell, and the sound of heavily running feet came from the level below. From above was the the now-familiar sound of multiple types of sentinels converging and seeking them out.

The lower level was mainly storage. How were they down there but not on this level? She and Rahne exchanged a glance. Which way? Kitty took Rahne's hand and they snuck down the stairs as quietly as they could. They'd be at a disadvantage going down instead of up.

A flash of metal rounded a corner and Rahne lifted her gun to fire. “There you are,” said Piotr. Rahne let out a short yelp as she realized who it was. Piotr was in his metal form, and she had nearly mistaken the sound of his metallic feet for those of a sentinel.

“Where's Kurt?” Kitty said.

“The other end of the building, trying to sneak up on them.”

“We're going back up. Are you coming?” Rahne said.

“_Da_. I am to draw their attention. Three will be better.”

“What's he going to do?” Kitty said, worried and upset that he was alone. Piotr didn't reply.

The three ascended into the fray again. Piotr smashed and beat at the machines while Kitty and Rahne shot them. More and more sentinels descended on them, a never-ending cascade. From somewhere not far, there was a wall-shaking explosion.

“That is what he was doing,” Piotr said. Kitty was too busy to respond. Sentinels appeared faster than they could destroy them and they were quickly being overwhelmed.

“Rahne,” Kitty shouted, “we might need to fall back and start again.” They would continue to use that strategy until it failed them.

“Let's go,” she said. “Are you coming, Piotr?”

“_Da_.”

They grabbed Kitty, and she jumped through the floor with them. They landed on the lower level, in the empty hall. A quick scan showed no sentinels yet, so they ran down the hall.

“Next staircase,” Kitty said. She was tiring. They all were, but there was no stopping. They had to fight until they were dead or the sentinels were defeated. She worried about Kurt, but didn't have the energy to focus on it. He'd just have to fend for himself for now.

They made it without incident to the next staircase, and as they burst up to the level above, sentinels seemed to have predicted their move and met them. There was nothing to do but fight. In the middle of it, Kurt appeared on the head of a sentinel and disappeared with it. He dropped into the fight again, swords flashing in one hand and his tail. He had a gun in the other hand. Kitty didn't have time to think about how dexterous he had to be to do that with any kind of skill.

They were overwhelmed much faster this time. Kitty caught Rahne's eye. By now, the two women had a pattern set. Rahne nodded and reached for Kitty's hand. “Fall back time,” she said. Piotr gave a final blow to a sentinel, sending it sprawling into another, then grabbed Kitty's arm. “Kurt, come on,” she said.

He threw himself against the others, narrowly missing a shot from a sentinel, as Kitty phased them all down through the floor. This time, their safe passage wasn't empty. She kept going to the next level down. For now, it was empty, but they knew it wouldn't stay that way for long. The team spared a moment to regroup.

“They know our tactic,” Kitty said. “We need a different way.”

“I don't think so,” Rahne said. “We just need to surprise them. If we split up—”

Kitty grabbed her arms, “No, we should stay together.”

“Actually, _K__ä__tzchen_, she makes a good point. If we split, they will also have to split their forces. It might give us a fighting chance.”

There was no time to bicker. “Okay.”

“You and Rahne are a solid team. I'll go with Piotr again. We'll fight our way to the center and meet up again. No more backing down. We have to end this. We don't have any more levels to descend to,” Kurt said, his eyes locked with Kitty's the whole time.

This was it then. The final push. It was them or the sentinels, and Kitty guessed the outcome wasn't going to be in their favor. There were just too many of them. She nodded. “Okay.” She couldn't manage anything else.

“Then let's go,” Kurt said, uncurling from his crouch to help Kitty and Rahne to their feet. He kept Kitty's hand in his, squeezing tightly.

Kitty swallowed hard and forced herself to speak around the lump in her throat. “I'll see you up there.”

He grabbed her head in his hands and kissed her hard. “It doesn't always mean nothing. I'll see you up there.” And he and Piotr ran.

Kitty didn't have time to analyze what might be the last time she saw her best friend. She turned, ignoring Rahne's shocked expression, and ran the other direction.


	10. This is the Last Chapter and I'm Out of Chapter Title Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will they live through the sentinel attack?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is resolved in this final chapter.

Earlier, Kurt and Piotr had teleported to the lowest level, not realizing Kitty would stop on the one above. They came up behind a group of sentinels on the upper level and fought them before teleporting back down again. Kurt's method of 'porting their heads off was effective, but exhausting, and with taking himself and Piotr on the jaunts downstairs, he'd be out of energy sooner than was smart. So he exchanged one of his guns for two vibranium swords from the armory and they headed back up.

He realized they were so far outnumbered there was almost no chance of winning. He realized that in all likelihood, they would fall to the sentinels. He swore to himself if he saw Kitty again, he would do something, say something, show her that he loved her more than she knew. If she didn't feel the same, it probably wouldn't matter. And if they lived through it and she objected, he'd claim it was the heat of the moment and maybe she'd get over it.

Now, he and Piotr ascended the stairs at the farthest end of the building, past the gym. There were only a few sentinels there, moving slowly and scanning. One had trapped Lockheed the dragon near the ceiling and was scanning him while he growled and threatened it with flames. When Lockheed saw Kurt and Piotr, he flew to them, and the sentinel opened fire. Lockheed whirled mid-air and torched it.

Kurt wished they could have their Bamf infestation back. At least they'd be a distraction for the robot killers. Hell, maybe they would have helped defeat them. He and Piotr attacked the sentinels, trying desperately to make headway and failing. Each sentinel that went down was replaced by two more, until it was all they could do to hold their ground.

“It has been an honor to fight at your side, _tovarisch_,” Piotr said as the sentinels pressed in on them, forcing them back.

“For me as well, _mein_ _freund_. I hope to see you on the other side.”

Kitty and Rahne blasted their way up the last set of stairs, breaching a hole in the mass of sentinels just long enough to gain the upper level. They were quickly set upon by dozens more, so many that they could not all fire upon them at once. As Kitty and Rahne gunned down a row, the next row stepped up to fire. The constant dodging, phasing, and firing was wearing both of them down rapidly. There were too many robots and not enough ammo or strength in the team, in spite of their determination.

“I believe in Heaven, Kitty. I believe I'll meet you there,” Rahne said, her voice hoarse from yelling and breathing in all the smoke from the smashed and charred robots.

“I'm glad we're friends.”

Kitty fired a line of shots at the next row of sentinel heads and behind them were the sidri sentinels.

“Oh shit.”

The sentinel mass that had pushed them into the corner crushed against Kurt and Piotr. Piotr was doing his best to shield Kurt, but even his great strength had its limits. Kitty and Rahne faced the sidri acid-spitters. Kitty phased herself and Rahne, but she couldn't keep it up much longer. She was weakening, her power was going to fail, and they'd be burned to death.

There was a low rumble around them, at first unnoticeable over the din of the fight. As it grew louder, even the sentinels took notice. Kitty's and Rahne's comlink crackled to life, and on the other end of the building, Kurt's and Piotr's did the same. Over the microphone came the sound of Douglock's voice.

“Take cover.”

Kitty grabbed Rahne and dropped, the last dregs of her strength holding them in her intangible state until they reached the bottom level. She dived for the bomb shelter at the end of the hall nearest them.

Kurt grabbed Piotr's arm and teleported into the nearest bomb shelter, almost directly below them.

Above them, the building blew apart.

Huddled in their shelter, Kitty tapped her comlink. “Douglock, what's going on? What are you doing?”

“I blew up the building.”

“You...you _what_?” Rahne said, eyes wide as she clung to Kitty.

“It was an unfortunate necessity. I will explain momentarily. I am landing.”

Rahne looked at Kitty in shock and confusion. Kitty shrugged. “I don't have a clue, but it sounds like he flew some kind of plane over and bombed us.”

“You did what, Douglock?” Kurt said.

“I will explain momentarily. I am landing.”

“Did you destroy the sentinels?”

“Most are incapacitated. A few are moving.”

Kurt and Piotr opened the heavy blast door and stepped out into broad daylight. A sentinel nearby was wobbling, and Piotr smashed its head. A sidri sentinel scuttled towards them, and Kurt fired on it, blowing a hole in its middle. There was debris everywhere, bricks and metal and glass and robots, piled shoulder high in some places. Kurt and Piotr made their way over it all, looking for straggling sentinels. In the distance, they could hear the sound of a plane engine shutting down.

Where the research center had been was only a cavernous hole.

“Reminds me of when we destroyed that Black Air building,” Kurt said. He searched for Rahne and Kitty. Lockheed flew above them doing the same. Now and then they came upon another live sentinel, but one at a time, they were easy to take out. The wreckage was unbelievable.

Kitty and Rahne pushed on the blast door together, finally opening it enough to squeeze out. Kitty didn't think she could phase any more. Everything was gone. Rahne's hand flew to her mouth and she sobbed. Kitty put her arms around her. Their home was gone, but they were alive.

“It's gone, it's all gone! What did he do?” Rahne sobbed, and Kitty could only comfort her. It was her first home, her first _real_ home. After escaping the clutches of that terrible Reverend, Moira had given her a new life here. And to save all their lives, they had destroyed it.

They climbed out, watching for live sentinels, and blasting them when they saw them. The piles of debris were precarious, and climbing was dangerous and slow. At last they made it to ground level, no less covered in parts of sentinels and building than any other level. Douglock and Moira were running towards them across the remains of the landscape. Rahne tore across the field towards them, into the arms of her adopted mother, and then her friend Douglock's. Kitty smiled sadly and turned around. Lockheed nearly slammed into her face, and she grabbed him into her arms as the dragon crawled around and around her shoulders.

“Lockheed! You made it! Thank God!” Kitty exclaimed. A sentinel stirred across the field, and Kitty shot it. It blew up, and a moment later, Piotr and Kurt climbed up behind where it had been.

“OH!” Kitty cried. They weren't dead. She started picking her way over the debris field, unable to run, and dying to move faster. A shot rang out, lasers blasted across the empty space, and Kurt was gone. Kitty froze, she couldn't breathe. Piotr turned calmly and shot the sentinel, then continued moving forward. Kitty felt her knees buckling, and arms went around her waist as she crumpled.

“Cut it close that time,” Kurt said, and Kitty choked out a sound and fell against him. She threw her arms around his neck to bury her face in his shoulder. He held her tight and lifted her a bit as she tried to hold on to every part of him, relief and fear and love mingling together in her system and overwhelming her. He held her just as tightly, swinging her around and kissing her head.

“I thought it shot you! Did it shoot you? Are you hurt? Oh my god, we're not dead.” Her hands moved over his arms and face, looking for hole from the sentinel blast. He was covered in scratches and bruises and bumps, as she and Rahne were, but he was all right. He was whole.

He answered her as fast as he could, “No, no, I'm fine, it's the usual stuff. No we aren't dead, thank God, _liebchen_, we are not dead.”

She pulled her head back and looked at him, running her hands over his face again. He thought she might kiss him, but as he leaned in, Moira's voice broke through and Kitty turned around. She took his hand instead and they made their way towards Douglock and Moira and Rahne, who were all crying and surveying the wreckage of part of their home. Moira's personal home had sustained minor secondary damage, easily repairable by the team, but the research facility was gone.

Brian and Meggan appeared overhead, and landed with shock on their faces. Meggan went to Piotr, standing alone, and hugged him, never taking her eyes off the wreckage.

“We're too late,” Brian said. “I'm sorry.”

“It's all right, _Herr_ Braddock, we are all alive, only the building is gone,” Kurt said. He and Brian exchanged a hug.

“Good to see you all managed to make it through,” Brian said. Meggan was looking dazedly around at the wreckage, tears falling quietly down her cheeks.

Moira was now crying in earnest, and Rahne in her arms as well, and the team moved to surround them and assure Moira that the facility would be rebuilt.

“I know that,” she said, “I do, it's just...there were memories in there, and it's hard to let them go.”

After several more minutes of tears and grief, she pulled herself together, never one to remain emotional unless she'd been drinking. “Well, you'll all need somewhere to sleep, I suppose.”

“Excalibur can stay at Braddock Manor until the facility is rebuilt, Moira,” Brian offered.

“Thank you, Brian,” Moira said, “I wasn't sure I had enough spare rooms for everyone in the house, with Rahne and Dougie already living there.”

They all turned to Douglock at the mention of his name. He was still standing next to Moira, a bit away, and silent.

“What exactly happened, Douglock?” Kitty asked, her hand still clutching Kurt's, as if she feared he'd disappear if she let go.

“I evacuated Moira as you requested, using the Blackbird for speed and stealth. When we reached the mainland, Moira insisted we return to assist. We argued until—”

“Until I reminded him that thing's got missiles on it. I told him to blow the whole bloody place up if it would kill the damned sentinels and save you idiots.” Moira wiped her eyes. Her bluster was affection, and nothing more.

“You told Douglock to blow up the research facility?” Kitty said, mouth agape.

“What else would you have had me do? Let those things kill my family?”

Kitty let go of Kurt and embraced Moira.

“All right, that's enough of this. I believe I need a lawyer. I've got a lawsuit to file against the Trask Corporation that, if nothing else, will tie them up in court for a long time.”

That night at Braddock Manor, Kitty, Kurt, Piotr, Brian, and Meggan enjoyed one of Meggan's finest meals. Cooking was one of her many skills, and Kitty missed it. She and Brian shared stories of their honeymoon trip, visiting different countries around the world. Although it had been cut short, they were simply going to pick up where they'd left off after making sure Excalibur was settled into the manor again. It made Kitty wish she and Kurt could do the same with their Germany trip. But she wasn't sure she wanted to visit that country again right now.

After dinner, Kitty, Kurt, and Piotr collapsed on couches and chairs in the living room, exhausted but happy. Brian and Meggan joined them, talking late into the evening. Trask Corporation would have a lot of explaining to do as to why illegal sentinels had attacked the Muir Island Research Facility, resulting in the destruction of the building in an effort to protect the inhabitants. At last, Brian and Meggan excused themselves for the night, and Piotr followed shortly afterwards.

Kurt waited somewhat impatiently for some quiet time alone with Kitty to talk to her. He wasn't sure where they stood now, if she took his earlier kiss as affection or love, or if she'd forgotten about it altogether. Now, at last, they were alone, and they were both so tired that even _he_ couldn't imagine staying up much later.

Kitty's eyes were half closed, and she leaned heavily against his shoulder. He tilted his head around to see her better, and she yawned. “I suppose we should retire for the night as well. You look barely awake,” he said, disappointment surging.

“Not til you explain yourself,” she said around another yawn. “And better hurry up, because I'm falling asleep.”

“I love you.”

“Good. I love you too. Can we go to bed now?”

There was no question about what she meant, as he followed her upstairs. He had pajamas on loan from Brian—much too big for him, and he gave up on those after a minute of trying to make the pants stay up. Kitty had a nightshirt of Meggan's and when he joined her in her room, she was already under the sheets, eyes closed.

He tiptoed in, trying to be quiet, his mind in a spin, wondering if he should just leave her be tonight.

“Waited for you,” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow. “C'mon.”

He climbed in and she pulled his arm around her. He could feel her relaxing as he closed his eyes, and then it was morning.

Kitty's face was buried in soft, warm fuzz, and his heart beat steadily under her cheek. She felt content and happy as she stretched. “Brian's pajamas were too big,” she said, running her hand over the fuzz on his chest.

“By far.”

“That's okay. This is better.”

“I feel I owe you an explanation,” he said, thinking back to the previous evening.

“Maybe. What do you want to explain?”

He took a moment to gather his thoughts—they were so jumbled, between dating and kissing and her and friendship and fear. “About you,” he said at last.

“About how you love me?” she said and he could hear the almost giggle in her voice.

“Yes. About how _much_ I love you. And why I kissed you.”

“Which time?”

He pushed at her so he could see her face, and it was full of mischief and good humor. “Both.”

She made herself look very serious, “I know why you did,” she said.

Now Kurt couldn't keep a straight face. “I want to say this. In Germany, that kiss—”

“Wasn't nearly long enough.”

“You are a minx,” he said.

“No, I'm a _shadowcat_.”

“Can I kiss you, Shadowcat?”

“Yes, please.”

He leaned down and kissed her, slowly and tenderly, the way he had always wanted to kiss her. Her lips parted beneath his as she sighed. When he finally pulled away, she smiled and said, “I love you.”

He gave up on words as he kissed her again, her arms around his shoulders and her fingers making lines in his fur.

When they emerged from the bedroom a while later, Piotr was waiting for them in the living room. “Moira called. She has engaged a lawyer who says she has a good case. She has also hired a company to rebuild the facility. Technet Builders.”

Kitty stared at Piotr, then at Kurt, who laughed. “I don't even care,” he said. “Let them build it. Maybe we'll get a new mushroom observatory out of it.” And he bent over to kiss her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well there you go. A nice, fluffy, ridiculous, self-indulgent thing. Hopefully if you read it, it was at least entertaining.


End file.
